


Through Blood and Through Fire

by ManiacsofTamriel



Series: Through Blood and Through Fire [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Oblivion Crisis, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:04:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 156,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManiacsofTamriel/pseuds/ManiacsofTamriel
Summary: A Dunmer vampire hunter and the Khajiit vampire he failed to slay find themselves imprisoned together in the Deadlands, neither hoping to survive without the aid of the other. This is not the story of Martin Septim or the Hero of Kvatch. This is the story of Saraven Gol and Zudarra the Bloody, allies by necessity and heroes by circumstance. Contains violence and some gore.





	1. Chapter 1

#  **Prologue**

 

 

The day Saraven Gol came back from his tour of duty in the Imperial City he had a saddlebag full of septims, two horses big enough to pull a plough, and a shiny new suit of iron armor.  He couldn't wait to see Velaru again, to see how much Dorova had grown.  He had ridden up to the farmhouse in the warmth of the afternoon sun, filled with hope and anticipation.  He had just turned fifty-two years old.  The fellows in the barracks had bought him a few drinks the day before, but he'd been careful not to get himself hung over before the long trip North on horseback to the lovely stone buildings in the rolling fields south of Cheydinhal.

 

Two days after that the pyre had run out of fuel and there was nothing left but ashes.  He bestirred himself to eat eventually.  Then he cleaned up the house as best he could.  It would need to sell for a high price.  Iron armor wouldn't be enough.

 

A week after that he was the new owner of one fleet black horse, a suit of mithral chain armor, and a silver longsword and dagger.

 

Almost a year after the day he came home he actually found her.  He had wasted so much time down mines, chasing goblins through reeking caves, gaining great proficiency against ghosts and zombies that he disturbed quite by accident because his grieving and implacable rage admitted of no stealth.  And all of that time she was in Cheydinhal, beautifully dressed in velvet, fair of hair and fairer of face.  He knew her because she was still wearing the torc bracelet he had given Velaru when they first found out they were going to have a son.  He had worked the metal himself, crudely and without finesse, but he had been proud, and she had been happy.  

 

He narrowed down the street by checking the beggars for punctures, by asking around about people who had disappeared or died suddenly in their beds.  And finally he caught her on the way out of an evening party, on the arm of a smitten young Breton wearing a shirt whose collar was too high for the summer heat.  He ran her through without the slightest hesitation, without stopping to ask why them, why us; and he took up the torc and scooped most of the ashes into a bag, leaving the young man stunned and staring in the street.

 

Two years after the day he came home he was almost dead from sheer lack of a reason to go on, walking his horse through a wood west of Skingrad with no real memory of how he'd got there, still carrying that sack of ash, and he came to a statue of a lady.  The people of the shrine told him what to do, and so he laid the ashes at her feet and was transfixed by a light such as he had never seen, pinioned by the voice of the great daedra herself.

 

In the year that followed he learned to sleep in the daylight, and he cut a bloody swath through the undead wherever he was able to find them – necromancers where he had to, vampires where he could.  In Frostfall he nearly died when one of the creatures found him in the late afternoon.  He looked like an Altmer and he wore a hood to protect himself from the sun, and if Saraven had not shaken off his hypnotic influence unexpectedly he would have drained the Dunmer of blood without anyone in the little inn even noticing.

 

After that he started wearing a leather gorget and bracers every second he wasn't bathing, even to bed.  In Sun's Dawn he killed two of them on separate occasions that were trying to nudge his leg aside to get to his femoral arteries.  Both in daylight.  Both hooded or masked.  Something in his blood seemed to call them.  That year he bought three spells and started practicing their use: one heal, one fireball, and one disease cure.

 

Ten years after the day he came home he joined the Fighters Guild.  It was harder for the bloodsucking bastards to get to him there in the daytime, with people in and out at all hours, and he didn't mind the company.  He had the odd liaison with a guildmate, rough and rapacious in the barrack rooms or out in the bathhouse.  It was important that it be satisfactory to them, in case he wanted to do it again; but just as important that it not mean anything.  People who meant something attracted vampires.

 

He was in and out of the Guildhouses for the next twenty years.  It was bed and board while he was in town, and when he bestirred himself to whatever job nobody wanted this week he made enough septims to buy his clothes and travel food and help maintain his armor.

 

The year Saraven Gol turned eighty-two, thirty years after the day he came home, he was on his sixth or seventh black horse, his second suit of mithral chain, and his fourth set of leathers.  It was almost dawn one night in the spring of that year that he started up the long hill to Kvatch.  The hood of his chain shirt hung down his back behind him, revealing a thin fuzz of white hair on his skull.  He was about five feet ten, lean and sere, lines dug deep in the dark gray skin around the corners of his eyes.  He had a nose with a sharp bend in it near the bridge, like the beak of an eagle.  He still had the tattoos he'd gotten just after he joined the Legion.  The angular, stylized likeness of a dragon wing on each cheek had originally been meant to show his pride in his Imperial citizenship, far from the provincial intolerance of the Vvardenfell his parents had known.

 

He could see two other horses far ahead of him, but could not make out much about their riders other than that one was armored.  That was not so suspicious.  Many people traveled by night for perfectly innocent reasons.  Still, the red-on-red eyes narrowed slightly as he clicked his tongue at his horse, increasing the black gelding's pace slightly as they started up-slope.

 

 

 

#  **Chapter One**

 

 

The night roared with the song of Nirn; Kynareth's fingers stroked through the treetops as a chorus of crickets chirped from every corner of the forest.  Far in the distance, wolves sang their mournful dirge.  The thick forest of the West Weald nearly blotted out the starry sky above, but tiny slivers of moonlight mottled the two figures on horseback who passed beneath the canopy.

 

They rode along at a leisurely pace, their horses' hooves clomping on the hard-packed dirt road, leather tack creaking.  Zudarra raised her white muzzle to the wind, smiling contentedly at the sweet scent of flowers carried by the breeze.  Long fangs reminiscent of those worn by her wild cousins protruded past her lips even when she did not smile.  It was a beautiful night, pleasantly cool, and the warmth of a recent meal in her belly left her energized and alert.  What a night to be alive!

 

Zudarra was a large Cathay-raht Khajiit, thick with muscle and armored in gleaming steel plate.  The greaves had been specially designed to fit Khajiiti legs; it was not hard to find a smith who could do it in Cyrodiil, the most diverse province in all of Tamriel, although like most Khajiit she did not wear shoes.  Sometimes her hands were covered by black gloves and her feet with cloth wrap, but not tonight. 

 

The fur of her face, hands and paws was a soft, creamy white that tapered to gray spotted tabby at the top of her head and the middle of her forearms, although this coloration was largely hidden by her armor.  Her gray ears were ragged with cuts and nicks.  She had never worn earrings in them, for fear they would be ripped out in battle.  

 

Her gray and black banded tail hung to the side of her saddle, swinging ever so slightly with the heavy steps of her gelding, blacker than the sky above aside from his white feathered socks and a blaze on his face.  She did not know Shadow's breed other than there was draft somewhere in his lineage, which certainly helped him to bear the weight of Zudarra and her armor.

 

A rather pale Altmer followed several horse-lengths behind on a red, unsaddled nag, his long white-gold hair in a single braid.  He was dressed in a blue and gold doublet with matching blue hose and soft-soled leather shoes that did not seem particularly suited for travel.  His horse plodded under the weight of bulging saddle bags and the mer himself smiled dreamily at the passing scenery.  

 

Zudarra's ear turned slightly at a sound from down the road; someone was coming from behind.  She did not bother to look, keeping her luminous red eyes focused on the road ahead of her.  They would reach Kvatch by sunrise.  She licked her fangs in anticipation.  A steel warhammer was slung across her back, two-headed and flat on each end.  She couldn't wait to feel the skulls of her enemies crushed beneath it.  She resisted the impulse to urge Shadow faster along; the fights would go on at their scheduled time regardless of when they arrived.

 

The hooves from down road were drawing nearer now, faster.  Zudarra glanced behind to see if it might be a guard on patrol; it was not.  She wondered if perhaps this armored gentleman were on his way to Kvatch for the same reason as she.  There was something odd about him, although she couldn't put her finger on what it was, exactly.  He had an intense energy about him that she could  _ feel _ prickling across her skin, but it was different from the aura of magicka one could feel from a powerful mage or a vampire.  Whatever it was, it was strangely alluring.  

 

Zudarra never bothered to conceal her face when she didn't have to.  Cathay-raht were uncommon enough that most other races assumed her long fangs to be a natural feature, like those of the Pahmer and Senche.  The red eyes were harder to explain, but still not completely implausible.  People who did notice her condition were usually wise enough to keep it to themselves.

 

She raised a gauntlet-clad arm in greeting as the stranger came within earshot.  Vandalion's glazed eyes followed her movement, but he didn't turn to look.

 

“Hail, friend.  Heading to Kvatch, are we?”

 

Saraven slowed as he drew even with the Altmer, eyeing the elf impassively, then looked up the road at the Khajiit.  Cathay-raht, you didn't see so many of those in this province.  From here her teeth looked longer than they ought, but Saraven was old and paranoid, and he knew that to be the case.  He could not yet see her eyes clearly.

 

“Evening,” he said, in a way that could be supposed to include them both.  His voice had a quality more common in Dunmer from Vvardenfell than from Cyrodiil, a gravelly rasp; immigration around the environs of Cheydinhal resulted in that sound more commonly than elsewhere.  “Yes, I am bound for the Fighters Guild.”

 

“I see,” she replied in a smooth, dark voice, reigning back her horse for the others to catch up.  A lifetime spent in the Imperial province had left no trace of any accent in Zudarra's speech.  She remembered some Ta'agra and could speak it if necessary, but her thoughts were in Common.  

 

“I am Zudarra the Bloody and this is my squire, Vandalion,” she paused for a moment, watching the mer's face for any spark of recognition.  Vandalion's tired nag had veered to the right around her without any input from himself so that Zudarra now rode between them.  The Altmer belatedly nodded to the Dunmer as if suddenly realizing that would be the polite thing to do, still with a cheerful, absent-minded smile plastered on his face.

 

The wind shifted and Zudarra's nostrils flared at the scent of this stranger, the pulsing blood that coursed just below the ashen skin.  He was healthy, strong, perhaps a little weary but who wasn't these days?  She could smell that, and something more... Her tongue curled in her mouth at the imagined taste of his coppery blood.  She would never act on her inclinations, of course.  Unless he deserved it.

 

“I will fight in the Arena tomorrow.”

 

As he drew nearer he could see that her eyes were crimson.  That by itself did not have to mean anything.  That plus the fangs plus the fact that she was traveling at night...  No aura of sharp predation reached out to stir his blood, but that was more apt to emanate from older creatures of the night.  If she was less than a hundred years old it would not be so obvious to him.

 

It momentarily amused him that she was obviously more interested in whether he knew her name than whether he would be missed from his destination.  His austere features showed no trace of this, he merely looked mildly interested.

 

“Is that so?” he said.  “'Fraid I don't get out to the cities above once a month or so.  I'm Saraven Gol.”  His eyes slid over to examine the Altmer again.  The man could be absent-minded, as Altmer sometimes were; or he could be cattle.  “Squire's not a talkative mer.”

 

This close it was evident that he wore a pair of silver scabbards on a baldric, a longsword on one side, a dagger on the other.  They were not highly decorated weapons.  They were scratched from heavy use.

 

The tip of her tail flicked against Shadow's side in minor irritation, but Zudarra just smiled at the Dunmer.  Vandalion was an annoyance she would rather not live with; he was so foggy-brained most of the time that he wouldn't remember to eat unless she ordered him to, and she hated when anyone tried to talk to him.   _ He's just a stupid squire, who cares what he has to say? _  But he was a necessity she could not discard.  It was hard to find anyone who wouldn't be missed who was also in good health.

 

The Altmer was presently looking around at the passing trees, oblivious to the fact that he was being discussed.

 

“That he is,” Zudarra agreed bluntly, uninterested in offering an explanation.  Her eyes danced over Saraven's armored neck for a brief moment before she looked ahead at the road.  Silver weapons, protected neck... Her smile widened.

 

“And what business do you have with the Fighter's Guild?” she asked.  “Not to be nosy, but we've been traveling for several days and, as you so accurately pointed out, my single companion is no conversationalist.”

 

The Dunmer flicked a white eyebrow upward briefly.  His answering smile was small and sour in the sharp planes of his face, drawing lines around his mouth.

 

“I won't know 'til I get there,” he said.  “Sometimes it's goblins.  Sometimes it's bandits.  Sometimes if I get lucky I'll get to do some real work.  Then it's people dying quiet in their beds younger than they ought, disappearing out by some cave, showing up all... stupid and weak after parties at some particular nob's house.  Just depends on how subtle the bloodsuckers think they are.  It varies more than you'd think.”

 

As he spoke he casually loosened the sword in its scabbard.  It made no sound.  The interior was silked.

 

Zudarra tossed back her head and laughed, a loud, short bark.

 

“Isn't it hypocritical, when one really stops to think about it, how we condemn a creature for feeding when we slaughter animals to feed ourselves?  It is no great travesty when a pig is killed.  That's because we view ourselves as superior, isn't it?  It is only natural for the superior to feed on the inferior.  What do you say, Vandalion?”  She leaned in her saddle towards the Altmer, hand on her chin as if seriously anticipating his enlightened answer.

 

“I suppose so, Mistress,” he responded happily.  She sat back and looked at the Dunmer.

 

“I jest.  I, for one, feel much safer traveling this dark road while someone with your expertise is present.  I suppose you've killed a lot of those 'bloodsuckers'?” Zudarra asked, head cocked to the side.

 

“Over thirty-odd years it's been a good number,” the Dunmer said mildly.  He could not muster much outrage at an argument he had heard many times before.  “Talked with a few of the smarter ones.  But the argument that you  _ ought _ do something because you  _ can _ is older than vampires.  Molag Bal existed before any of you, y'know.”

 

“First of all, that is not my argument.  I  _ should _ because it is  _ right _ .  It is the natural order of the world for the strong to prey upon the weak; you see this in every aspect of life, from the fly caught in the spider's web to the snake oil sellers taking the rubes for all they're worth.  The smarter and stronger have earned their right to exist.  

 

“Secondly, who is this 'you' that you address?  I am but one person, I have nothing to do with the others you have slain.  You know nothing of me and what I may have done or not done,” she huffed in false offense, but the smile was back in the next instant.

 

“I know you're hauling along a blood-thrall that was once a mer with a will,” said Saraven.  He jerked his head at the Altmer.  “And you think you're toying with me, which is a little game your kin invariably think is cleverer than it is.”  He still couldn't muster any anger.  It was harder, lately.  Maybe he wasn't getting enough sleep.  “But by your own argument, what you've done or not done does not matter.  If I am able to kill you I am right to do so, because I will have then proved myself to be the stronger.”

 

He kept waiting for her to attack.  Most of them started to lose patience at around this point, the ones who tried to engage him in conversation in general.  He had grown mildly curious to see the pattern repeat, and that was stupid, and that would probably get him killed one of these nights.

 

Not far up-slope was a broad green in front of the great gates of the City.  Guards stood in front of the gates and on the wall, wearing the city's heraldic sigil, the stylized face of a wolf.  There was not traffic in and out yet.  The sun was just peeping over the Eastern horizon, and it was a long trip down to the road to anywhere else.  Kvatch stood on a high hill, overlooking miles of surrounding terrain.

 

“You don't know anything,” Zudarra laughed. “He may have asked for this.  Being fed upon can be a very...  _ erotic _ experience, you know.”  She purred the last words, batting her lashes at Saraven from behind her curved steel pauldron.  “In fact... would you like to try?  Vandalion is not a jealous man, I promise.”

 

She'd had no intention of breaking the law, as appealing as it was... as appealing as  _ he _ was, in particular.   _ Gods, that scent.   _

 

They were too close to the gates, his horse might run and be found before she could catch it, she would be known as one of the few, if not only person to have arrived that night, and on and on.  Zudarra knew her power; knew she could easily take down the odd hunter that might come after her, but she could not take down the entire city guard if they decided she were guilty of some crime.  If she were willing to kill any random person she would not go through the trouble of clothing and feeding a thrall.

 

On the other hand, he clearly meant to kill her.  Her hands were tied; this was all on him.   _ Pity, he could have lived. _  Her hands were a blur as she squeezed her right leg against Shadow's side, urging him to sidestep to the left and bring her in closer to Saraven, and slung the warhammer from her back, carrying the momentum of the heavy hammer head towards his own.   

 

“Nah.  Never cared for it,” said Saraven.  Trying to put him off with an outrageous statement was a logical prelude to an attack, so when the horse moved toward them he was already nudging his black gelding with his heel.  It was not so high-bred as to jump at butterflies and shadows, but it was certainly agile enough to get him out of the way of an enormous thing like the one she was riding; now it danced away, head up and teeth bared.  Saraven hooked one leg over the saddle horn with practiced ease and lay back almost flat against the horse's back as the warhammer whistled over his head, then rolled to his right and dropped to the ground.  He struck on one shoulder, rolled, and came up to his feet with his weapons in his hands, the heel of his dagger-hand jerking his mithral hood up over his head.

 

Vampires were stronger than mortals.  Vampires were faster.  But they weren't as fast as myth would have you believe.  Even the ancient ones could not outrun an arrow, though they might outrun a horse, and if you had fought enough of them you could even learn to react just about fast enough.

 

Just about.  There were scars on his very bones.

 

Fire crawled beneath his skin, sullen but not yet dead.  You had to wait until they were close.  You'd never hit one that was running.

 

Zudarra grinned at the Dunmer's maneuver, her torso twisting with the weight of the hammer as it sailed over him.  Shadow's ears turned back at the unusual shifting but kept on his path without a hitch.  She swung up, letting the hammer come to rest over her left shoulder, and used her right hand to push off the saddle horn while leaning forward, swinging her leg over the saddle as she dropped heavily to the ground with a short clattering of steel plates.  Her speed and strength could do nothing to improve the restricted mobility awarded by her heavy armor and dismounting was always awkward regardless of the circumstances.

 

The horse stopped immediately when the weight of his rider was lost, although Vandalion's continued plodding along up the slope.  Vandalion stopped his horse farther up the road.  He was twisted on its back, watching them from afar, mildly perplexed but unconcerned.

 

The black horse stood to one side of the road, pawing at the ground with one front hoof as he watched them.  He had been with Saraven for two years now.  He knew the way things went, and that there was no point in getting a start on cropping the grass.

 

Zudarra whirled to face Saraven as soon as her feet touched the ground, letting the haft of the warhammer fall back into both hands.  He was already up and she wasted no time dashing forward, jaws parted in a bestial snarl and wet fangs gleaming.  She had cocked back the hammer for an underhanded swing at his torso, the better to block his possible counterattack, and swung forward towards his belly.  That mail might do well to protect against blades, but her hammer could crush his bones and rupture his organs just as well.

 

Saraven watched the approach of crushing agony with an expression of dull fatigue.  He twisted his right side sharply forward past the weapon's head, left hand darting out to catch at the long shaft, and let his boots skid along the dirt as he let the momentum of the blow swing him underneath the weapon.  She was much stronger than he was.  Even the smaller ones were stronger than he was.

 

Holding onto the haft, dagger hilt crushed into his hand, he was belly-up for about a quarter of a second.  He stabbed upward at the inside of her thigh, aiming for the seam of her greave with the longsword in the instant before he let go and slid to a low crouch on her left side.

 

Zudarra snarled as the blade punctured woolen padding and underclothes and flesh, eyes widening in shock at the unexpected move more so than the sudden pain.  The silver had a noticeable bite to it but she bared her teeth and did not falter, muscles straining against the added weight and pulled back with her right hand to twist the hammer head up over her own.  When the head had reached the apex of its flight, hammer weightless for a split second before it could fall, she thrust downward, butt of the shaft aimed straight for the top of Saraven's coifed head. 

 

The Dunmer seemed to avoid the shaft by inches, jerking to one side so that it thunked into the dirt beside his shoulder.  For a fraction of a second he locked eyes with the vampire, staring up from the ground.  Zudarra grinned maliciously down at him, glee flashing in her smoldering eyes.  His face was inert, a dead man's face, fires long tamped in the red-on-red eyes.  Then he rolled to one side and up to his feet, slashing upward and backhand at the Cathay-raht's face to buy himself space.  He flicked the dagger into its sheath even as he moved, and in his empty left palm a red light began to bloom.

 

She jerked back when he slashed, bouncing backward with her hammer resting in her palms.  Her left hand clenched around the hilt ever so slightly, a simple movement that drew the magicka from her modest reserve.  Blue light flashed from her fist, ribbons of magicka twisting up her arm to spread through her body.  A wet warmth had  spread across her pants, blood dripping over her greaves and down her ankles.  He'd missed the major artery but she couldn't leave the wound for long.  She shifted her weight evenly across both legs as the pain abated.  

 

The Dunmer twitched an eyebrow as the vampire healed herself.  Not many of the creatures mastered any sort of restoration.  But then, she had said she was an Arena fighter, and healing was an indispensable weapon in a gladiator's arsenal.  He bounced on the balls of his feet for a half-second, considering her.  Then he stepped sharply to his right, jabbing at the seam of her cuirass with the longsword.  His left hand opened as he held it out toward his left, toward the most logical place to dodge away from the blade.  Magicka poured from flesh and bone and became coherent flame, a little light exploding into a great fireball.  It would singe him as well if he hit her, but the burns that mithral would inflict through his padding were nothing compared to what fire could do to the flesh of an undead.

 

She had seen the red light that blossomed in his palm.  Did this hunter believe she was born yesterday?  Zudarra stepped left, lips pulling back in a grimace as the blade sliced through her flesh at an angle, and twisted her torso sharply to the right, hoping that his blade would be caught between the two halves of her cuirass and wrenched from his hands.  As she turned she dragged forward the hammer in another underhanded sweep, straight for the mer's legs.

 

The fireball exploded on the grass beyond the road, lighting the trees and foliage red for a split second before the flame dissipated, leaving behind a spot of blackened grass and tiny flickering flames on the low hanging branches that quickly burned themselves out.  Shadow squealed and tossed his head, eyes wild with fear.  He broke into a gallop up the road and Vandalion turned to watch the gelding disappear around one of the many bends in the path.  The black horse tossed his head and snorted, but he stayed put.  None of this was unfamiliar to him.

 

_ Miss. _  Saraven's wrist torqued as she twisted away, but he rolled with her, withdrawing the blade without losing his grip.  He knew he would have to take the hit, but to be unarmed against a vampire, with all of their natural advantages, was nearly certain death.  His movement pulled him away from the hammer, and it impacted glancingly on his right thigh, a meaty thunk that rattled him all the way down to the bone as it jangled on the mithral.  The chain dissipated some of the impact, but the blow knocked him back a step.

 

Zudarra frowned as her hammer rebounded, annoyed.  She was vaguely aware that her horse had run, but it scarcely mattered.  She had bet and lost and now was injured for no gain, an injury worse than the one from before.  The vampire hefted the hammer up to rest on her right pauldron and backpedaled, releasing magicka even as she moved.  She wouldn't have had time enough to wind up another swing and blood was gushing from her side.  

 

Zudarra watched her opponent with a hawkish scowl as the wound in her side knit shut, continuing to put space between them for as long as he would let her.  Her ears twitched at the sudden heat on the back of her head.  The sun was rising behind her.  Thanks to the loyal Vandalion she was strong enough to resist its burning rays, but the light of Aetherius was a constant needling prickle on her skin even through the fur.  She couldn't imagine how annoying it must be to smoothskin vampires.

 

Saraven pursued as she healed herself again, implacable, expressionless, sword held at the guard as he looked for his opening.  His leg wanted to buckle, the muscle was undoubtedly damaged, but he had pressed on through worse.  You couldn't let them open distance if you were going to be stupid enough to fight them in the open.  Distance gave them back all of their speed advantage, let them transform into a blur that could hit from any direction.  

 

This time he feinted with the handful of flame, jerking it forward underhand as if to cast another fireball.  Then he slashed violently at her head and face.  Once get an eye, an ear, something that hurt outrageously, and they would either break and run or transform into a stupid, snarling monster, an easy kill if you survived the first retaliatory strike.

 

Zudarra darted left when she saw the flame in his hand and raised the warhammer over her face to block the following slash, sparks flying inches from the wrinkled bridge of her nose as his blade connected with the steel shaft.  She kicked out with an armored leg, aiming a foot for the knee of his injured leg.

 

He was not fast enough to completely avoid the kick.  He dropped to one knee on that side instead, taking the blow against his hip.  It jarred him from head to toe, pain in his torso matching the pain in his leg as it took his weight, but he hooked his right arm under her shin to stop her twisting away again and thrust his left hand forward.  Flame exploded between them.

 

Zudarra screamed as the burning heat engulfed her.  The armor protected most of her body, but still the flames licked at every gap in the joints and against her uncovered face and hands.  She swung wildly, blinded by pain and light, and felt the warhammer knock against him.  There was no power behind her swing.  The blast was over in an instant, leaving the underside of her face charred and devoid of fur, the stomach-turning stench of burned fur and flesh filling the air.  She wrenched her leg from him and stumbled back, still screaming in mindless agony, the head of her hammer falling to the ground and dragging along after her.

 

The hammer hit him in the chest.  It was not hard enough to crack his sternum, shatter his heart, but the impact made him lose his grip.  He rolled backward over his shoulder, sword arm out to one side to avoid skewering himself, and came up to one knee.  His nostrils contracted in self-defense against the stink of burned fur.  Now was the time to swiftly pursue, to finish it, to save the poor stupid Altmer and all of her future victims, but suddenly his arm was weak.  Saraven stared down at himself and up at her and saw something else - 

 

_ A human child not twelve years old, the stink of burning hair and the sound of dwindling screams as she burnt to ashes, fangs bared against the destroying light -  _

 

For the first time since she had attacked him the muscles of his face moved, brows drawing together, gray lips parted in frozen agony.  He literally could not move.

 

Her wits somehow came to her through the agony of the burn.  Zudarra was no stranger to pain, usually welcomed the reminder that she was  _ alive  _ and fighting.  This wasn't even the first time she'd been burned.  Every time was just as excruciating and mind-shattering as the first, but to stop and dwell would mean certain death.  She had enough magicka left for about one heal and couldn't risk being hit with fire again.  She didn't have time to register the strange look on Saraven's face, she only knew that she had to get away.

 

Snarling in rage the vampire turned and ran, slinging the warhammer into the harness over her back.  To a mortal observer she moved unnaturally fast for a large Cathay-raht in burdensome armor, but from her perspective she moved achingly slow.  The glaring sun, the pain of the burn, the armor weighing her down all worked against her.

 

She launched herself at the Dunmer's black horse, an unnaturally high jump even for a Khajiit, and grabbed up the reigns.

 

The black gelding was not unfamiliar with the smell of vampires, or of burning.  He was unfamiliar with the sudden, heavy weight on his back.  He twitched, whinnied, and sunfished, trying to throw her off, but a hard hand on the reins brought him under control quickly enough. 

 

Saraven Gol found himself kneeling in the road, bruised, bloody sword in his hand, with no memory of the last five seconds and no horse.  He shook his head as he struggled to his feet.  His left hand curled inward as he healed himself, releasing the magicka with more difficulty than he ever found drawing out the fire.   Blue light spiraled up around his body.  

 

His head cleared as the pain faded, though his heart was suddenly pounding in a way that fighting a vampire absolutely did not do to him.  His saddlebags held his food and money.  There wasn't much of either right now, since he was on his way to Kvatch to find work.  The loss of the black gelding was a greater one.  He pushed back his mithral hood as he stood in the road, and an oath in Dunmeris escaped his black lips.

 

Zudarra growled, reeling the reigns tight to control the animal's head.  As soon as he was done bucking she charged forward, releasing the last of her magicka to heal the burn.  The pain was deep and healed irritatingly slow, fresh pink skin crawling over the underside of her chin and hands where the fire had eaten away flesh and fur.  She angled close to Vandalion and snatched up the reigns of his horse, yanking angrily at the old creature's resistance.

 

“Follow me and hurry!” she barked, throwing the reins back at Vandalion when his horse had picked up enough speed on its own.

 

“Yes, Mistress,” he responded cheerfully.  She didn't give him a second glance, but glared ahead at the road.  Her tail thrashed against the galloping steed, hands clenched on the reigns as she seethed with rage.  That had gone horribly, and now the damned elf knew where to find her.  The humiliation of having been forced to run was a wound more painful than the fire.

 

When she had put enough distance between herself and Saraven that he would never catch up on foot, she was too close to the gates of Kvatch to do what she wanted to do: kill his damned horse and leave the corpse on the road for him to find.  Hers was cropping grass in the field before the gates.  He was easily caught and lead up to the stable just outside the city, where she paid to board all three.  There were too many guards that had seen her approach, she couldn't just kill the horse or leave it loose.  Only a guilty person would do something like that, and Zudarra's livelihood depended upon never giving the city guards a reason to look twice at her.

 

After helping herself to potions of healing and magicka and retrieving her black hooded cloak and gloves from Vandalion's bags, they headed into the city.  The walk was more pleasant without direct sunlight on her face.

 

It was times like these when Zudarra felt a fleeting sense of regret for the path she had chosen.  It was a beautiful day already, the rising sun a fireball that lit the few clouds closest to the horizon with golden light, the glass panes of the giant cathedral just inside the city gates glowing as if on fire from the inside.  The city was just beginning to awaken, shopkeepers unlocking their doors and the scent of fresh baked goods wafting from windows.

 

The smell of solid foods did nothing for her, now.  Zudarra vaguely remembered the joy of warm, flaky biscuits slathered in honey and butter or the juicy sweetness of a good wine.  But to think of those things now did nothing at best and turned her stomach at worst.  She had a thirst for one thing and it was constant, unquenchable.  

 

Zudarra had always wondered why vampires were stupid enough to kill their victims.  Why would anyone ever do that, and risk the ire of an entire town or self-righteous do-gooders like Saraven?  But she had learned first hand how incredibly hard it was to stop drinking once the divine taste was on one's tongue, filling the body with an indescribably heady power.  She had accidentally killed her first several victims, too.  It took great restraint to keep Vandalion alive, especially after particularly brutal battles that left her weak.

 

She veered right past the cathedral, down a familiar cobble road lined with rows of tidy Colovian style stone houses with their tall, gabled roofs, towards the Kvatch Arena at the Eastern town square.  There was nothing she could do about that Dunmer now, but wait and see if he would come.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Saraven hiked into Kvatch on foot, weary in the brightening morning.  He went to check at the livery stable if she had boarded Ves there.  The black gelding trotted over to greet him at the edge of the corral, snuffling his hand.

 

“Sal antha, Ves,”  he said, and patted the horse's neck.  He went to ask the ostler about the saddlebags.  Yes, a Khajiiti lady had left some here.  Yes, they might be for him, if he was expecting it; did he mind describing them and their contents?  Saraven went down the list patiently and with complete accuracy, and ended up walking into Kvatch with his own sparse purse, eating his last apple.  It was odd that she hadn't even bothered taking his things.  Perhaps it was intended as a gesture of scorn.

 

There were people about, opening up their little shops or pumping water for cooking and washing.  Kvatch was about half Imperial and about half everyone else, mer and betmer mixed in with the humans with no particular tension.  His armor and gorget drew curious glances, but with both a Guild and an Arena in town a Dunmer in mithral chain was not so shocking to see.

 

He debated pursuing her to the Arena or going to the Guild first to rest.  It had been a long ride from Anvil even before he'd gotten into a fight with a Cathay-raht vampire.  She would restore her strength with the Altmer's blood.  He would be too late to save the mer from that either way, and it ground at him like a whetstone against a notched sword.  The question was, would she take another innocent life before he could find her again if he stopped to acknowledge mortal weakness?  Whatever had happened to him out there on the road, was it more or less likely to happen again if he was rested?

 

Fighting in the Arena as a vampire was probably cheating in some way as well, but he cared considerably less about that.  Blood sport was at best morally irritating to him, and everyone there knew they were going to die on the sand if they didn't win.  It wasn't the same as murdering a family in their beds.

 

He was too tired to think straight, and walking straight was increasingly a challenge as well.  At last his shoulders slumped, defeated, and he turned toward the Guild across the street from the great Chapel of Akatosh.  One of these fights would be his last.  He acknowledged the fact without sadness, without even fear at this point.  Velaru and Dorova were in Aetherius, and he was going to the Colored Rooms.  He did not regret that, either.  They had died young, and he had ceased to be young on the day they died.  They would not know him now, or he them.

 

The Kvatch Fighters Guild was not busy.  The local head, a burly Nord called Svarni, was presiding over breakfast in the dining room downstairs.  Saraven walked past the doorway completely unnoticed and past the lower training room and up the stairs to the sleeping areas.  He did not recognize the porter who helped him get his mail off, but the balding Imperial's teeth weren't sharp and his eyes were blue.  He held a hand up when the man reached for the lacing of his gorget.

 

“Leave it.  And the bracers.”

 

“You can't possibly sleep with those on,” the man said, staring at him in puzzlement.

 

“Sure I can.  Here, thanks for your trouble.”  He gave the man a couple of septims when the armor was packed into the chest at the end of the bed, folded himself up onto the hard mattress, and slept.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra lead Vandalion down the arena bloodworks.  It was much busier that usual, a slew of strangers she had never seen before and many familiar faces warming up on the training dummies or stretching on the mats inside.  A few fighters she didn't know stopped to stare at her and a few offered curt greetings which she begrudgingly returned.  Gladiators were usually not very friendly with one another.  Liking your opponent made them harder to kill.

 

Not _all_ arena games involved killing, though.  The world would quickly run out of fighters if that were the case.  Most of the time Zudarra was forced to participate in their watered down parody of true combat, with a healer at the sidelines ready to save the lives of the grievously injured.  The arena was there to make money, and the people wanted blood, yes – but they also wanted heroes they could root for.  The dead could gain no following and the names of strangers did not draw a crowd.

 

But today was different, and the main reason Zudarra had come all the way from the Imperial City to participate.  A battle royal, five combatants in the ring at a time in a fight to the death, with the winners of each round to ultimately face each other in the final battle.  Zudarra hoped to eliminate many of her long-standing rivals today.

 

She lead Vandalion to a private room, separated from the main area with only a thin blue curtain.  It was little bigger than a closet with a dirty bedroll thrown on the ground, stained with the blood of old injuries and stinking of sweat.  She yanked the bag of provisions from the Altmer's hands and pointed towards the bed.  He knew what was expected of him and shucked off his pants, laying back on the bed with his usual heavy-lidded smile.  Zudarra rifled through the bag and pulled out some carrots, soggy and covered in gray spots and dropped them on his chest.  She normally took very good care of him – after all, her health depended on his – but it had been several days since she'd had time to visit the market.  Well, a few moldy carrots wouldn’t kill him.

 

The thick scent of blood that seemed to have soaked into every crevice of the bloodworks drove her mad with thirst.  The training area was kept quite clean, but the resting rooms and the hallway leading up to the arena was not.  She would never be able to get some rest with that tantalizing scent in the air unless she fed.

 

Zudarra kneeled before her thrall, turning his thigh for better access.  Often her feeding got him hard, which she found at once pathetic and amusing.  With so little blood it was better left to his other organs, but she was sure it was a response he couldn't control even if she ordered him to.  

 

Vandalion was a weak-willed idiot, an adoring fan of hers who was constantly leaving roses for her in the Imperial City bloodworks and at her rented room in Elven Gardens.  She finally started inviting him home- half the time they couldn't even remember being fed upon, especially if they'd had a drink first, and over time she had learned enough about him to know that he would not be missed if he disappeared.  No family, a dead end job mucking out horse shit at the stables; a complete loser with no skills or future.  At least he had a use now.  Zudarra had given his life purpose, and he was happy enough.  The day his usefulness ceased would be the day she drank him dry and left the corpse to be someone else's problem.

 

Her wickedly long fangs sunk into the soft flesh of his thigh.  Vandalion moaned in ecstasy as she pierced his femoral artery, then raised her fangs from the punctures to suck.  As she drank, new fur  sprouted where her burns had been, erasing all trace of injury.  The taste of blood was a rapture greater than any joy a mortal could know.  It was better than sex, better than the last gulp of water in the center of the Alik'r.  She never tired of it no matter how often she drank.

 

As she fed a deep calm passed through Vandalion, even more than what he usually felt.  His body was buoyant, floating in a sea of light, far away from the dirty bed encrusted with the fluids of strangers.  Zudarra felt his pleasure and contentment as her mind reached out to touch his.  She could sense his every thought, although vaguely, a shadow behind a veil.

 

_You are mine.  You have always been mine.  You will serve me forever._

 

She felt his dreamy joy at receiving her commands.  Zudarra was a god to him.  Her own commands echoed back at her, the thoughts colored with complete subservience and love.

 

She pulled away reluctantly, gulping the last mouthful of blood and gasping as a thrill of power spread throughout her body.  Vandalion's head sagged to the side, his entire body limp on the floor, cheeks completely white.  She had drank a little too much.  A touch of his neck showed a faint pulse; he would probably live.  Although he never seemed to bleed much – something in her saliva, she supposed- she released a tiny bit of magicka to heal the punctures on his thigh.

 

“Eat those carrots,” she said.

 

“Yes... Miss..,” he answered weakly, eyelids fluttering as he tried to look up at her.  His hands moved slowly to the vegetables on his chest.  She pulled a bottle from the bag, uncorked it, and set it by his head.  He would need to replenish his fluids.

 

“Don't forget to drink all of that, too,” she continued.  “I'll be next door.  Just rest for the remainder of the day.  I'll come for you later.” She flipped aside the curtain and closed it behind her, and went to get some shut-eye in another room.  She would sleep sitting in her armor, just in case the vampire hunter showed up.  Not comfortable in the slightest, but a necessary precaution.  Her blood boiled when she thought of Saraven.  She almost wished he'd show up so they could finish what they started.

 

It was no good, getting all agitated now.  She settled down on the bedroll of the neighboring room, warhammer laid across her lap as she leaned against the wall.  Her belly was warm with fresh blood, and for once she felt completely satiated.  The feeling would not last long, but long enough for her to doze peacefully.

 

A few hours later, after Magnus had climbed to the summit of his path across the sky, Zudarra and four others were waiting at the gates to the arena battlefield.  The first round had already played out.  She had waited in the bloodworks with all the others, listening to the clangs and the shouts from above as their fellow fighters fought tooth and nail for the lives.  She could smell it every time one of them died.  Even if she'd not been able to hear the anguished cries and the jubilant cheering from the crowd, she would know exactly when that moment came for each of them.

 

The announcer wrapped up his agonizingly long spiel and the gates were lowered.  Usually the fight was on from that moment, but the rules today were a little different.  The five of them made their way into the ring, each to a square pillar of stones that marked their starting place.  The battle would begin on the announcer's mark.

 

Most of the combatants, like her, were heavily armored.  There was a mage in the mix today, a scrawny Breton in flowing robes meant to impress.  Fire was the only thing Zudarra feared, but the Breton probably wasn't going to last long anyway.  She had her eye on Bashag gro-Gat, a mountain of an Orc clad in the traditional armor of his people and brandishing a halberd that had an even greater reach than her weapon.  He was the only one she was truly concerned about today.  With any luck the others would tire him out by the time they were ready to face off.

 

As they walked to their places in the ring, Zudarra noted that the sky had darkened while she slept.  Thick black clouds rolled ominously above, a blood red sky peeking through when the clouds did part.  It was the strangest thing Zudarra had ever seen.  Despite the blockage of the sun, it wasn't dark.  Zudarra would say the light on the ground resembled the fabled blood moon of Hircine's prophecy, except that it was day and nothing in the sky was even visible.

 

The announcer was listing off their names when a sudden boom rocked the air.  The ground beneath their feet trembled, a dull roar from far away sending vibrations that rippled through the hard packed dirt.  It nearly knocked Zudarra off her feet.  Murmurs of fear and astonishment rose from the crowd.

 

“It seems that the gods themselves have decided to welcome our combatants in the arena today!” the announcer joked, an Imperial with a bullhorn officiating from far above them on a balcony.  Red lightning crackled in the sky above them.  “Now, hailing from Thorstad, in Hammerfell, we have Taran Ozalan!  Will his deadly mace be the end of these brave warriors today?” The announcer waited for the cheering to cease before moving on.  “And finally, a familiar face to many of you, hailing from the Imperial City,  Zudarra the Bloody!  This one's got a real temper, folks!”

 

Zudarra thrust her warhammer towards the sky with both hands, grinning at the cheers and boos alike that rose from the masses.  Every muscle of her body tingled with energy from her recent feeding and anticipation for the fight.  Streaks of fresh blood still splattered the ground where their predecessors had fallen, the scent of death stirring her blood lust even more.

 

“And... let the battle begin!!”

 

Bashag tried to make a beeline for Zudarra but was held up by Taran and the mage, leaving Zudarra with a steel-armored Nord calling himself Snorre Thundertusk.  She would have that longsword out his hands in short order.

 

The cheering of the crowd was an inconsequential buzz in the background as they exchanged blows, until the happy shouts turned to screams of terror.  At first Zudarra presumed someone had died but a quick glance around told her that no one was even close to going down.

 

Then booms arose from behind and the Nord stopped his assault.  He was staring up at the benches in shock.  She darted away from him and risked a glance behind to see a wave of bodies flowing across the grandstand, all of them attempting to flee from something.  Then she saw them, a horde of scamps racing along the lowest level, cackling and chittering as fireballs bloomed and exploded into the crowd.  People hurled themselves into the pit to escape the daedra, screaming when they hit the ground with broken bones.  Those were the lucky ones.  The wall of the arena was lined with pikes.

 

Zudarra's mouth gaped at the inexplicable sight.  The first thought in her mind was that scamps in the animal pens had somehow escaped – sometimes exotic creatures were brought for the fights, but none were scheduled today.

 

But the sheer _number_ of them.  There was no way that many scamps were being kept down below.

 

All of the combatants had stopped fighting, but Zudarra kept her distance; she did not trust any of them to adhere to the unspoken truce.  They watched in shock and amaze as the swarm of scamps overwhelmed the crowd, burning people alive and eviscerating others with their claws.  A few fireballs were launched into the arena, but the fighters dodged them easily from that distance.

 

The Redguard, Taran, ran to the gate, which had closed when the match began to prevent escape, and rattled the bars.

 

“Let us out so we can fight!” he shouted, but nothing happened.  Whoever manned the controls was obviously long gone, more concerned with their own preservation than making sure those trapped in the pit had an escape.  Ironically, this field of death was now possibly the safest place to be.

 

“No one leaves until one stands alone,” Bashag grunted.

 

“I think it's safe to say the fight is canceled,” Taran said sourly.

 

The grandstand was clearing out now.  Those who had been able to reach the doors had fled and those who remained were either dead or screaming on the pikes or the ground.  It was a massacre the likes of which Zudarra had never seen in her entire life.  She found it fascinating, until the scamps started launching themselves over the pit wall.  They were agile little creatures, able to easily clear the pikes and land without hurting themselves.  Suddenly, she did not fear her fellow gladiators quite so much.

 

She swept the first scamps away with her warhammer, smashing two at once who ran side by side, and dodged a volley of fireballs launched by the ones that followed.  The other fighters grunted with the effort of fending of their own attacks, scamps screeching as they died.

 

More and more of the pale, goblinesque creatures flew over the wall.  There was no way the five of them could fend off all of the daedra at once.  Zudarra turned, frantically searching for any means of escape.  Her eyes landed on the support pillars that lined the inner walls.  There were no pikes there.  The pillars only rose as high as the wall, which was about twice as tall as herself, and were connected to stone walls that intersected the outer ring of the arena where the seats were arranged.  She swung the warhammer into its harness and dashed to the nearest pillar, easily outpacing the swarm of scamps, and launched herself to the top.

 

It was a difficult jump even for a vampire.  Her chest collided with the pillar, her body slamming forward against her own armor, but her claws found purchase in the stone.  The screams of her fellow warriors tapered away as the horde overwhelmed them, and Zudarra grunted with the effort of lifting her body up onto the wall.  She looked back in time to see a ball of fire flying towards her, and threw herself into the grandstand just as it whooshed overhead.

 

She was scrabbling up in the next instant, a bit slowly in her armor, then a blur as she flew down the steps to the exit.  The scamps that were left in the grandstand hooted and howled as they followed.  There was no way to avoid stepping on the charred husks that piled the floor.  Funny- just minutes ago these people were cheering for the deaths of others, but they had been the ones to die.

 

Zudarra had no moral issue with the arena fans, obviously.  They were all impuissant worms who wanted a taste of the thrill of battle without getting their hands dirty themselves.  Most of them, like her Vandalion, didn't even know how to hold a sword.  She was contemptuous of their weakness, that was all.

 

The city outside was in worse disarray than the arena had been.  Tall, dark skinned, man-like creatures in daedric armor marched through the streets, running through anyone stupid enough to cross their path.  Most people didn't have a choice, having been chased from their homes by scamps or clannfear.  Zudarra recognized all of these daedra, had fought them in the arena at some point; but to see them walking freely through the city was unthinkable.  No single conjurer could not have summoned all that she saw.  If the entire Mages Guild banded together for a hostile takeover, they could not do this.

 

But the scamps were behind her and Zudarra had no time to wonder about what she saw.  She darted for the nearest alley, hoping to lose them as she raced through yards and leapt over fences.  Finally she saw her chance: a pine tree growing behind a house.  She leapt for it, long black claws digging into the scaly bark as she propelled herself up the tree with hands and feet, snapping off smaller branches foolish enough to be growing in her way.  From the top it was an easy jump onto the slate-shingled roof of the neighboring house.  She slid down the sharp slope, toes spreading across the shingles to hook her claws into the crevices and stop her fall.  Zudarra looked down over her shoulder in time to see scamps, and a few clannfear she had picked up along the way, racing off in the direction she'd been traveling.  Finally her panicked mind could calm and formulate some sort of plan.

 

There was only one gate leading out of town, the first place people would flee to and therefore the perfect place for daedra to congregate.  Zudarra wouldn't last a minute under their barrage of fireballs.  

 

The moat.  The castle moat was the only place safe to her in this Divines-forsaken hellscape.  But a huge, open plaza lay in front of it that she would have to cross, and even if she survived that it was surrounded by a wall and the gate would be locked.

 

Grunting with effort, she pushed herself to the top of the roof.  A shingle came loose under her paw and she heard it shatter on the cobblestone walkway below.  She almost lost her footing then, but with teeth bared and ears flat against her head and every muscle of her body straining she pulled herself up.

 

Zudarra nearly lost her grip when her head cleared the top of the roof and she saw the unthinkable.  From here she could see most of the city, particularly the castle and the huge plaza before it.  A giant portal had risen from the ground, piles of rubble at the base of it where it had pushed its way up through the cobblestone.  The frame was made of black rock, like hardened lava, wicked curled spikes rising from the top of it, and the inside was a shimmering orange inferno.  Sharp black spikes twice as tall as herself had risen from the ground all around it, weeping red blood from the tips.  The fiery portal was translucent, allowing her to see the castle beyond.

 

But the thing emerging from the portal was not on the other side of it.  A huge machine like a battering ram mounted on rows of iron caterpillar feet crawled forward from the portal slowly, the cobble smashing under its weight every time a long leg came forward and dug itself into the ground.  It stood higher than the house she clung to.  How long it was Zudarra could not say, as it had not finished its journey from the portal.  What had come forth already had to have been longer than the arena battlefield.

 

The head of the battering ram was an eye of fire wreathed in black spikes.  Zudarra's locked eyes with it, stared into the fiery red pupil and the swirling inferno that surrounded it, and a deep dread she had never known shuddered through her.  Zudarra knew that she would die this day.  The horror of this knowledge pushed down on her from all sides, grabbed her by the heart and squeezed.  

 

A sudden blast of heat against her back yanked Zudarra back to reality.  The armor saved her back but her tail was on fire!  She screamed and released the shingles, hands automatically going behind her to try to put out the flames, but her shifting weight caused her to tumble over backwards with no hope of ever latching onto the roof again.  The world spun around her, a brief flash of green and red and the grinning black faces of dremora before the hard stone walkway came rushing up at her and everything was black.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Saraven seldom dreamed now.  There had been nightmares for the first ten years or so, and then they had gradually tapered off over time.  Now sleep brought him only black silence, readily dissipated by the slightest noise or touch.  He supposed he probably still dreamt.  Everyone did, didn't they?  But he did not remember it.

 

And yet that day he awoke from a nightmare.  This time it was a little family of Argonians, mother, father and child, clinging to the smiling corpse of a Khajiit in the tattered clothes of a beggar.  They were gnawing at the dead woman's flesh, sucking and lapping at every last drop of blood, and they did not even see him before he set them all on fire.  They went on screaming for what seemed an impossibly long time.  He beat them back from the door, denying them the water outside, because this was Leyawiin and shallow water was never more than a few steps away.  He cut them to pieces, to ribbons, he burned them until only ashes were left; but the screaming went on.

 

It was still going on when he opened his eyes.  The bed shook under him, and as he sat up, groping for his sword, he realized the entire building was shaking.  Pictures fell from the walls, candles from the night stands.  The light that came through the diamond-shaped windowpanes was red.  Saraven's hand finally closed around the baldric on the floor beside the bed, and he hauled up the sword and dagger and ran for the window to see what the Hells was going on.

 

The sky was red.  Red and yellow, swirling like lava, bathing the city in a brilliant and unnatural light.  Some of the buildings around the Guild were on fire, and people were running through the street in panic, being pursued by - 

 

Saraven shook his head once and again, in case he was still dreaming.  But no, his nightmare had been about vampires, not about daedra running the streets of Kvatch.  As he watched, a clannfear overtook a running Bosmer, pouncing from almost two yards away to slam him to the ground under its clawed, birdlike feet.  It tore at his throat with its beak, and blood the color of the sky overhead fountained and splattered its tan scales.

 

“Vakh naela.”  He swore and hurried to get into his armor.  The room was oddly empty, and the floor kept shaking.    When he went out onto the landing, armed and armored, there was nobody there either.  The Guild was completely empty.  Even the porter was gone.  He went carefully down the stairs, not touching the railing – half of it had fallen over from the sheer force of the ground shaking – and looked into the dining and training areas, but they were empty as well.  The front doors swung on their hinges, slapping against the walls.

 

A figure in heavy armor stalked into his view, the helm and pauldrons cruelly spined, the metal black with inlays that glowed crimson.  The creature had a shield on his arm and a mace in his hand.

 

“What's going on?” Saraven shouted at him.  Slowly the armored man turned, and the voice that answered sounded as though it came from the bottom of a well, metallic and echoing:

 

“BREAK!  BLEED!”  The creature began to run toward him, heavy boots striking sparks on the cobbles at every step, and Saraven realized he was looking at something he had never seen: a dremora in armor forged in the fires of another plane.

 

There was no time to be shocked.  He shifted his weight to one knee, dropping his shoulder as if ready to meet the charge.  He heard the dremora laugh, breath that stank of blood and brimstone washing over him even through the helm's grille, and then he spun aside.  Even supernatural armor must be put on and taken off somehow, and his silver longsword sought the cuirass seam under the uplifted arm automatically, without thought.  The dremora screamed and continued to charge forward, black-red blood spraying Saraven's mail shirt as the Dunmer withdrew the sword and danced back.  For a moment Saraven thought he must have missed the heart, but then the creature's knees gave and he threw himself straight into the ground.  He kept kicking as if running for a good two seconds after he was dead.

 

A pair of clannfear as big as large dogs were walking up the street, beaks and claws dripping with blood.  One of the scaly bipeds opened its beak and let out a sound like the squeak of a rusty door, a long creaky rattle.

 

Saraven loosed a ball of fire at them both.  They turned as one at the soft whomph, heads darting like snakes, but did not even attempt to move away from the spreading fireball.  When it had cleared they were running toward him, scales only slightly singed, showing no real signs of injury.

 

Five minutes later both clannfear were dead, and Saraven stood over their twitching corpses with bloodied blades.  The street seemed empty now, everyone dead or fled, no more screaming nearby.  There were bodies, the reek of blood and shit mingling with the stench of burning.  They lay in doorways and in the street.  In the building next door half of a woman lay in a doorway, intestines trailing what seemed an impossible length out into the street, eyes and mouth wide and horrified.

 

It was too late to do anything for them.  Somewhere in this Hell-in-Nirn there was someone still alive who knew what was going on, or who needed help, or both.  Saraven Gol raised his eyes to the towering Chapel of Akatosh across the broad street.  There were signs of life there, pews piled as a barricade around the wooden doors.  He thought he could see men behind them, the gleam of chainmail that probably meant city guards.  He started that way with purposeful tread.

 

“Halt there!” said a voice from behind a stack of chairs and pews.  It quavered only slightly.

 

“I'm not a demon,” he said, stopping a few yards off.  “I'm Saraven Gol.  I'm with the Fighters Guild.  What's happening here?”

 

“We don't know!  There are daedra in the streets!  There's probably someone alive at the palace if they dropped the portcullis fast enough, but the mechanism is old – I wouldn't bet on it.”  It was a young voice, male, strained.

 

“Nobody in there knows why the sky's red?” he asked.

 

“No!”  There was a hasty conference from behind the barricade.  There must be at least four people back there talking.

 

“Terra says they came from the direction of the city gate first,” the voice said presently.  “I wouldn't go looking if I were you, though.  Wherever they're coming from, it's happening in waves, and they haven't stopped yet.”

 

“Somebody has to find out,” Saraven said.  “Thanks for the information.”  He turned toward the South and the gate and started off at a run.  There would always be more vampires.  Whatever was happening here was harming more innocent people in one day than the Cathay-raht had probably killed in all of her undeath, and he did not have the time to worry about her now.

 

It didn't take long for Saraven to reach the gate proper, but it was thronged with a screaming horde of people all trying to get out of Kvatch.  Demons in their black-red armor formed a hemicircle at the back of the crowd, shouting jubilantly to one another in their own language as they peppered the throng with lightning and fire.  Some wore armor.  Some wore robes of black fabric, a thing he had not yet seen.  Here and there citizens tried to fight back.  As he watched, a man and woman with billhooks yanked a dremora in armor into the crowd, and the creature was trampled underfoot, his helmet yanked off and his head crushed under heavy boots.  In the next instant the rebels disappeared in a fiery inferno as the other daedra retaliated.

 

He glimpsed the shining mail of a city guard near the gate itself.  The man was laying about him with his sword indiscriminately, trying to keep from being stabbed by daedra or trampled by the crowd itself.  The corpses of both mortals and dremoras lay on the ground, some killed in the fighting, some trampled in the rush.  The air stank of excrement, blood, sweat, and overall there was a new and terrifying smell of brimstone and burning.  Small fires burned all around.

 

Beyond the open gates, crude barricades were being erected, made of fences, chairs, sharpened stakes, whatever anyone could find.  The stakes were aimed toward the city.  The chainmail of Kvatch city guards reflected the crimson sky, staining them red.  It was hard to see from here, but it looked like they were trying to get people past the barricades and off down the hill, those few who made it past the gauntlet of fire and lightning that was the gate.

 

Very much to his own surprise, Saraven felt the dull burn of rising anger, something he had not known in a decade and more.  He had given thirty years of his life to making the world a safer place for people with families – well, twenty, he couldn't argue the first ten had been about anything but revenge.  But that twenty years had been spent in a righteous cause, a labor toward the day when no one need fear that they would come home and find their loved ones missing or dead in their beds or drawn across the walls with hand and blade and claw.  That fragile peace was shattered, burnt on a pyre of fire and blood beneath the red sky.  Even for those few who might survive this day, things would never be the same again.

 

No one was paying the slightest mind to one figure in mithral chain approaching the crowd from the city.  He walked directly up behind a dremora in a black robe and ran him through – her, the creature had breasts, he realized as she crumpled with a snarl.  Those on either side turned to look, and another one sprouted a silver dagger from his eye in the moment before Saraven turned to deal with the nearest demon in armor.  He took a glancing blow from a mace on one pauldron, jabbed at the armpit, kicked at the knee, and then the others noticed him and it was a frenzied melee.  More people escaped ahead as their tormentors were distracted by the Dunmer in the pale chain armor, creating a space in the crowd through which people could spread out and avoid trampling as they continued their desperate run on the gate.

 

Saraven's world became a blur of red-black armor, maces, spiny helmets, snarling voices.  He knew that as soon as he was surrounded it would be over.  Earlier in the day he might have faced that possibility with dull resignation.  Now he was furious.  It lent him new strength as he spun aside from a fireball, dropped to one knee, stabbed up at the seam of a cuirass.  The body fell and he took a blow from a mace on his upraised arm, bruising but not deadly.  The spell impacted on a demon behind him, and he heard the creature laugh, unharmed.  

 

He rolled forward between two of the spellcasters and slashed behind him as he rose to his feet, producing a pair of harsh screams, and he turned to cut at them again without seeing the demon looming behind him with upraised mace.  He half turned in time to take it on the shoulder instead of the skull, but it drove him to his knees again, and then he was surrounded by a forest of sharp, kicking boots.  Agony erupted in his back, his ribs, his legs as blows impacted on his mail.  

 

He caught at a boot, pulled the owner down, and then he felt a jarring impact to the back of his head and pain exploded into silence.

 

Pain was still with him when he awoke.  Saraven's eyes snapped open as he realized he felt no weight of mithral chain on his head, no snug fit of the gorget on his throat.  He hissed between his teeth, swallowing a groan as black metal swam into view overhead – converging bars.  A cage.  Beyond lay only blackness, the ceiling too far away to be made out even as his eyes struggled to make clear shape out of formless darkness.

 

He still wore his cuirass, greaves and boots, he realized after a moment.  They'd taken away his hood, his gorget, and his bracers, baring his throat and wrists.  Well, he'd known the vampires were going to get him one day.  The important thing was that he died doing Meridia's good work.  Nothing they did to him would change that.

 

But that wasn't right.  He had been in Kvatch, he remembered now.  Saraven twitched one hand as he healed himself, and his head grew clearer, memory swimming into focus.  He had been swarmed under at the city gate.  So why was he alive now?  He sat up slowly, looking around.  This was no cave.  The cage was pointed at its summit, secured with a lock of spiny, bizarre design, and the room around him was made of some slick black marble or stone.  Channels carved into the floor converged on a drain in the center of the room, and they ran with sticky crimson residue – the air stank with blood and smoke and something else, something furious and alien.  Thin panels in the walls glowed yellow-orange without source.  Their weak light did not extend to the ceiling above.  A couple of pillars – they seemed to grow directly from the floor, without a carven edge that would suggest being built and placed – flanked a pair of doors on the opposite wall.  At least, they should be doors.  There was a vertical crack between them, and they converged to a point at the top, like a dreadful parody of church doors.  But they glowed orange-yellow with the same strange light as the walls, and he saw neither knob nor handle.

 

There was another cage nearby, he realized after a moment.  A bench of the same black stone stood between his cage and it, as if someone might want to come and have a seat and relax while they looked at the prisoners.  A hook hung from a pillar behind it.  From the hook hung a ring of black metal keys.

 

* * *

 

Zudarra awoke to a horrible throbbing pain in her tail and head, a probable concussion.  Her fingers curled into a fist to quickly heal the damage before it could become permanent.  The stink of death and decay reached her senses first, and then another scent, something delicious and inviting that stoked her bestial hunger even as it triggered a memory.

 

“You!” she snarled, grabbing the bars that enclosed her and yanking herself to her knees with them.  The cage was too small to stand at her full height, her large frame packed tightly in the narrow space as it was.  Her rage towards the Dunmer subsided as Zudarra realized that Saraven had nothing at all to do with her current predicament.  She'd been captured by dremora, hadn't she?  She found every last detail of this room alien and bizarre, while the air smelled of things she had never encountered in her life.

 

_ You're not in Tamriel anymore,  _ she realized with a growing horror.  Her eyes widened in panic, twin moons glowing red in the dim.

 

Zudarra's next realization was the absence of the weight on her back; they had taken her weapon, but left her armor.

 

Saraven turned at the noise and movement from the next cage, one hand rising to rest against the bars.  It was the Cathay-raht vampire, eyes glowing crimson in the dim room.  He grunted a laugh, hardly more than an exhalation through his nostrils.

 

“How d'you like those odds?” he said.  “I wonder if they even know a current mortal from a former one?”  He looked around the room, eyes narrow.  “I would wonder if they were planning to feed me to you, but the cages are too small.”

 

Zudarra did not feel very immortal in that moment, knowing she was completely helpless if a dremora came back and decided to roast her alive in the cage while she screamed.  It was a terrible feeling that twisted through her guts and fogged her mind.  She had to get out, she had to get away!  She wrenched violently at the bars in her hands, growling with the exertion.  They rattled but didn't budge, the cage swinging slightly under her furious jerking.

 

It was useless.  Zudarra realized she was heaving and tried to slow her breathing.  Panicking made her stupid.  She had to regain control of herself and think.  She looked down at the old bloodstains in which she kneeled.  There were a couple of broken teeth on the floor of the cage.  

 

She glared back at the Dunmer, just sitting there watching her.  Why was he so calm about this?!

 

Saraven watched her, head slightly on one side.  The daedra had built them sturdy enough to resist an undead's tremendous strength, which was surprising.  It was a new experience seeing a vampire in a cage, raging, panicked.  He had seen their cattle penned in fences, of course.  Some of them preferred terrified, struggling prey instead of docile and hypnotized.  One of the best days of his life had been letting a family of Bretons out of one of those pens, still alive, carrying their two children out into the daylight and life and healing.

 

“Your problem is that you're afraid to die,” he said.  The bottom of his own cage was also above the floor by a couple of feet, he noticed.  He looked from that to the keys and back.  “When you get a little older you'll forget that it can happen to you.  They always do.”

 

He opened and closed his left hand.  The fire was still with him, or he had been unconscious long enough to get it back.  He began to shift his weight from right to left of the cage, one foot braced against each side.  The thing was tremendously heavy, resisting his weight, but it gradually began to swing very slightly toward and away from the bench and the keys.

 

“Don't tell me what I fear,” she snapped.  “No one wants to die; it's got nothing to do with being afraid.”  She watched him swinging his cage and followed his line of sight towards the key on the wall.

 

“Are you skilled in telekinesis?” she asked, anger replaced with curiosity.

 

“No.”  He leaned harder, increasing the rate of the cage's progress.  “And I don't much care, but you might want to back up.”  As he spoke he freed one hand from the bars, a light beginning to gather above the palm.  On the next swing toward the bench he leaned out as far as he could, shoving his arm between the bars, and cast a fireball straight up at the keys.  It rose as a streak of golden flame, startlingly bright in the darkness for one instant of soft hissing progress.   Zudarra quickly pressed her back against the bars when she realized what he meant to do, just in time for the hot blast of fire to blow past her face.   Then it hit the bottom of the hook and exploded.  The room filled with light, imprinting Saraven's retinas with the sphere of fire.

 

There was a furious clatter as the keys were blown upward.  They bounced off the pillar, vanished into the darkness above for a second and then smashed back down into the blood channel about two feet from the bars of the vampire's cage – Zudarra, she had said her name was.  Zudarra the Bloody.

 

Saraven watched this with the same dull disinterest she had seen throughout most of their encounter on the road.

 

Zudarra blinked at the blinding light and looked with incredulity from the keys that landed nearby up to the Dunmer's impassive face.  Then she moved, lightning quick, unfastening the pauldron from her right shoulder and throwing herself to the floor of the cage with her arm through the bars.  She pressed her bare shoulder to the bars as hard as she could, claws straining painfully to reach.  Finally a claw hooked around the ring and she dragged it up, grinning.

 

The Khajiit's hands shook as she hurried to unlock the cage.  The first key wasn't right.  She fumbled and dropped the set on the floor of the cage.  The echoing clack was distressingly loud to her anxious mind, but she snatched them up and tried again.  The strange lock clicked on her second try and the door wheezed rustily as it swung open.

 

She climbed from the cage with her pauldron in hand, making sure to stay well out of reach of the caged Dunmer, and held the keys in her mouth as she refastened her pauldron.  She could only secure the top to her cuirass.  Without Vandalion it would take too long to fasten the straps on her upper arm.  Zudarra looked expectantly at Saraven when she had finished.

 

“Aren't you going to beg me to free you?” she asked, truly puzzled by his apparent resignation. 

 

Saraven shook his head.  “You'll open the cage because you're hungry, in which case I'm dead.  Or you'll leave me here, in which case I'm dead.  I don't care which it is.  Dremoras are blood-drinkers, and you can't get into my mind, so it'll feel exactly the same either way.  Pain, then weakness, then silence.”  He rested a shoulder against the cage bars, feeling the heavy thing slowly swing to a halt under its own weight.

 

“They might torture me first,” he amended after a moment's thought.  “I suppose that would be slightly worse.”

 

Zudarra huffed in annoyance, tattered ears flicking to the sides.

 

“You've got me and the entire world  _ all _ figured out, don't you?” she asked, pacing over to the knobless door and pressing an ear against it.  The material seemed to be very thick, but she could faintly make out heavy footsteps, perhaps two rooms away.  There was no telling how large of a building they were held in or how many dremora were inside, let alone what other horrors might await them.

 

Her relief at being released from the cage was fading now as Zudarra realized they were still imprisoned in a daedric plane.  Most likely dragged through that portal she had seen in the plaza, or another like it.

 

“I'm not particularly hungry.  I fed just before all this happened,” she continued.  It was a bit of a lie.  Saraven's oddly alluring scent seemed to draw her in like no mortal she'd ever encountered, but she could resist.  It was true that nothing would make her happier than to drain him right now, both to taste the sweet blood that called to her and to finally put an end to his aggravating drivel.  But walking through these halls alone could mean nothing but certain death to either one of them.  He was making a big show of not caring if he lived or died, but Zudarra was sure that  _ no one _ could truly not care.  He needed her as much as she needed him, as infuriating as that was to admit.

 

_ You can't get into my mind,  _ he'd said.  Another thinly-veiled lie meant to reinforce his stoic facade.  Zudarra turned back towards his cage, gazing into his tired eyes as she reached out to touch his mind with her own.  It was slightly harder to do without feeding, without some sort of physical connection already established, but not impossible.  Zudarra would bend his will to her own, make him docile and subservient to ensure her survival when she released him.

 

She had succeeded in surprising him.  He half-expected her to walk away.  There were victims enough in these halls if she could stand to drink the blood of daedra.  Saraven did not look away, did not shut his eyes, did not move in the slightest.  

 

Gods, but she was young, he had not realized how young.  A powerful mind groped after his, seeking to engulf and drown him, swallow his will.  It did not feel like an attack, that was the power of it.  The first assault was like being wrapped in warm cotton.  But he recognized all of it, the smothering weight, the sweet alluring urge to surrender – it was not subtle.  An ancient had ways of creeping in around your defenses with just their voice.  Even they could be resisted if you didn't look them in the eye.  Zudarra found the loud echo of each and every vampire who had touched his mind, brutal and bestial or terrifyingly aware.  He could no more stop himself from experiencing every one than he could turn back the ocean's tide.  He felt breath on his throat, heard their voices, saw their eyes gleaming from the darkness, so clearly that she could probably have recognized them if she met them on the street.

 

_ Thirst thirst thirst ardent desire brief satiation -   _

 

_ I will have you, darling, you just don't know it yet -  _

 

_ Fall to your knees and worship me, mortal  -  _

 

_ You think you're a hunter.  Isn't that adorable. _

 

Around those echoes was woven a web of fatigue, pain, old, sullen anger, and a sad little thread of worship, a sense of the self already lost to something greater than mortal need or immortal thirst.  The pressure of her mind rebounded from that barrier without making an impression, like a ball from a rubber sheet.  It did not even tire him to maintain it.  He had been tired since the 11th of Sun's Height of 3E 403 (the date burned like a sullen brand in his mind, like flaming letters carved into a tombstone).

 

“No,” he said aloud, quite calmly.  “For a drink from me you will fight tooth and claw.”  He could not pretend that she would not win.  Without his weapons and leathers, and without full magicka, his physical chances were poor.  “If you really think you can't get out of here on your own, you open this cage door and you take your chances.”

 

Zudarra's jaw slackened at the sudden storm of memory and emotion that bounced through her mind.  Vampires far,  _ far _ more powerful than she had been slain by this man.  All of them had been stupid to underestimate him, as she had almost done herself.  She must avoid their careless mistakes if she planned to survive.

 

Zudarra wrenched her mind from his, severing the failed link and hiding her chagrin behind a scowl.

 

“I already told you I don't wish to feed, you blind idiot!” she hissed, keys digging into the palm of her hand as they clenched at her sides.  “I want to get out of this gods-forsaken place and needed insurance that you wouldn't do anything foolish if I open this door.  Your single-minded hatred of my kind might have you lobbing around fireballs when we could be working together.”  Her ear turned to a heavy stomp beyond the door.  There was no time to argue further or plead for his cooperation. 

 

She lurched forward , hackles rising wit h the expectation that he might attack and the furious blood lust that stirred from being so close to him.  The key turned in the lock with a click just as the doors behind slid open with a slow crack, revealing long jagged teeth that had held them together and a dremora in gleaming black armor and mace in hand.

 

He grunted skeptically, mouth open to tell her he didn't believe her, but then she actually unlocked the cage just as the doors to the room ground open.  Saraven shoved the door away from him and dove to his right, away from the vampire, as the daedra snarled in puzzlement at finding them both free.  The Dunmer rolled to his feet in a crouch and - 

 

Fire would not hurt them.  He remembered it quite clearly.  He was unarmed.  They had taken his hood, his gorget, his bracers.  What did that leave?  

 

He had a body covered in mithral chain.

 

_ Well, this is going to hurt. _

 

Saraven shook his right mail sleeve down over his fist and waded in to strike a short, hard punch at the creature's neck.  The dremora stepped forward and hunched up his shoulder, picking off the blow on his pauldron.  Behind him, the door began to rumble its way closed.

 

“Kneel, caitiff,” he sneered, as Saraven spun away to regain his balance; he felt wetness on his stinging knuckles under the sleeve.

 

Zudarra moved left to better flank the dremora, smiling inwardly at Saraven's failed strike.

 

_ Not so ready to give up and die, after all. _  She edged further to the door.  Perhaps if the dremora struck at the Dunmer, she could make a run for it.  Pry open the door and escape.

 

No, that was idiotic.  Zudarra would need backup out there.

 

She launched herself at the demon like a cannonball, right arm over her head for protection and leading with her left shoulder.  Caught off guard by the vampire's speed, the dremora grunted as three hundred pounds of Khajiit and steel slammed him back, head bouncing forward after his skull smacked against the wall.  He raised his weapon, a heavy black cudgel inlaid with bloody runes like that of his daedric armor and edged with three dull blades, and slammed down at the Khajiit's head.  The bladed mace glanced from her gauntlet with a loud bang.

 

She jumped back before he could strike again.  His heavy armor had protected him from being crushed, but he also seemed completely unfazed by the blow to his head.  The dremora grinned, revealing a row of white teeth filed to sharp points.  He darted forward, mace held high.

 

_ Oh, for that level of furious energy.  _  Saraven watched her with blank amazement, white eyebrows raised.  Then he ducked behind the dremora and kicked him in the back of the knee.  He perforce went down on that side, snarling, and Saraven had to dodge back to avoid the nearly automatic backhand with the mace.  He stepped forward and trapped the creature's armored arm between his own hip and elbow, grunting at the impact.

 

“Gorget fastener's on the left,” he said.  The dremora twisted around, swinging his armored gauntlet, but could get little leverage.  Saraven kicked it away.

 

Zudarra didn't need a second invitation.  She dropped to her knees in front of them, grabbing the dremora's free arm and quickly working to unfasten the armor with her left hand while he thrashed to break free, snarling and gnashing his teeth.  As soon as the gorget fell from his throat he dipped his head to stab Zudarra with his short horns, but she grabbed the demon by the chin and had her fangs in his throat in the next instant.

 

_ Ba-Bump _

 

Long fangs sliced effortlessly through alien flesh, her nose centimeters away from sweating skin that smelled sharply of sulfur and rage.

 

_ Ba-Bump _

 

Her fangs raised from the punctures and hot blood poured into her mouth.  So much hotter than mortal blood, it threatened to scald her tongue.

 

_ Ba-Bump _

 

The first swallow, so warm in her throat and belly!  Her limbs tingled with a vitality she had never known.  Pure hatred, pure rage, and pure unbridled power burned inside him!  She could taste it, could feel it as it flowed through every artery and capillary of her own body.  Her muscles bulged beneath her armor as if they might explode from her skin.

 

_ Ba-Bump _

 

More, more MORE!  She had to have more!  A tiny voice somewhere in the back of her mind told Zudarra that she was not safe.  The vampire hunter was inches away.  Even as her body swelled with a godlike power her brain clouded with the immensity of it.  She was prone and defenseless before him and didn't care.

 

There had been no time to properly mesmerize the dremora, and the natural calming effect that mortals experienced when being fed upon apparently did not extend to daedra.  The creature continued to thrash as she sucked, his movements eventually slowing to tiny kicks and jerks as he died in her arms.

 

Saraven let go as soon as she had a grip, backing away.  He should run, or he should smash her in the head and set her on fire as soon as the dremora was weak enough not to be a threat.  He grabbed up the mace as the daedra lost his grip.  His first roar of pain and outrage became a confused whimper, and Saraven was already raising the weapon when his eyes met the dying demon's.  They were curious eyes, swirling with little bits of color outside the blackness of the pupil, not quite an iris -

 

_ Velaru lay with her eyes open toward the window, dead skin shrunken against her bones, expression quite peaceful – there had been no struggle... _

 

He almost dropped the mace, staggering back a step.  Saraven shook his head, trying to clear an image he thought he had forgotten years ago.

 

_ The cave was so dark that you could almost mistake the bodies for logs, for piles of rocks, for anything but dismembered corpses, open mouths silently screaming, limbs far separated from the torsos to which they properly belonged.  The air was thick with the stench - _

 

The dremora's eyes were glazed, body twitching as he went on fighting well past the point of life becoming extinct.  Saraven looked away, hand clenched convulsively around the handle of the weapon.  He had not the strength to raise his arm.  He could hear his heart thundering in his own ears again, as it had on the road to Kvatch.  His eyes were wide as he shook his head, fighting to clear it.

 

_ What is happening to me? _

 

Zudarra gasped, shuddering in pleasure as her head raised from the dremora's neck.  Its armor thunked against the floor as she released him.  Dead, sunken eyes stared up at them from deep hollows in the daedra's face, his armor now seeming far too big for the shriveled gray body.  She heaved herself to her feet, blackish blood dribbling from the snowy fur of her chin, and grinned widely at the Dunmer.  He was looking a bit pale.

 

Zudarra threw back her head and cackled with joy.  She couldn't help it.  She felt so alive!  The dremora's blood was unlike anything she could ever conceive of, and now her earlier fears were suddenly preposterous.  Nothing would stand in her way, least of all this weary little man!

 

She stepped over the desiccated corpse and came to the door, not even stopping to listen for footsteps before she pried it open with her hands.  It offered little resistance and slid open to reveal a large room beyond, the center lined with rows of pillars just like the ones in the dungeon.  These had long black spikes growing from them that arched upwards.  Blood slowly trickled from the tips, dripping down the curved protrusions and staining the floor below.  Red glass windows lined the wall to the left, filling the room with an eerie light.  Zudarra stalked over to one but the glass was thick and frosted, and she could only make out vague shapes beyond it.  At the opposite end of the room a dark tunnel lead up at a steep incline, and to the right was a single door identical to the one she had come from.  She could smell countless dremora and scamp that had passed through recently, and could hear the metallic voices of dremora far above them.

 

Something truly curious caught her eye then: a fleshy, rounded tube hanging from one of the spikes on a pillar.  It was tan, with the same sort of blemishes, nicks and spots that a human might acquire over a long lifetime.  It was secured to the pillar by several thick tendrils and hung just below Zudarra's eye level.  She ducked her head and saw a tightly clenched sphincter on the bottom.  The entire thing pulsed faintly as if it were alive and was slick with mucous, but she could make out no sensory organs at all.  It  _ smelled _ like it was alive... not quite a human smell, but similar and overlaid with something musky that she couldn't identify.  

 

Her nose wrinkled in disgust and she turned to look back at Saraven, wondering if he had his wits about him yet.

 

Abruptly he realized that the vampire had moved.  Saraven stiffened his spine, forcing his face calm as he looked her over.  She almost seemed taller, muscles fuller, brimming with power and life.  Whatever chance had might have had before was certainly gone now, he acknowledged, and felt the sensation of grieving horror gradually recede as he reached for an accustomed fatalism.  She was not attacking him yet.  He bent to search the dead dremora's body.  There were two potions in pockets of the armor's padding, marked by symbols he did not understand, and a scroll whose lettering he did: Silence.  It must have been taken from a dead prisoner.  He took the scroll and left the bottles.

 

She was looking at him, he realized as he straightened.  He walked out into the larger room with his new mace in hand, taking it all in.

 

“The dremora are associated with Mehrunes Dagon,” he said.  “We must be in the Deadlands.”  It was a safe enough guess.  It seemed unlikely they'd had time to erect a fortification with stone that looked this heavy and old in Kvatch, and the thing that hung anchored to the pillar was so alien that he could not imagine it growing in Nirn.  He felt no urge to examine it closely.  Instead he turned to stalk over to the other door and haul at its edges.  It yielded reluctantly, growling open as the teeth separated – Zudarra had done it easily.  

 

There were two cages in the other room as well.  They were not empty, but what was inside them could no longer properly be called people.  The drains on the floor ran red.  Saraven stood quite still, looking at them, until the doors slowly ground shut in front of him.  Images fought behind his eyes, but this time he was master of himself, able to push them firmly away as he turned back into the room.  His face was a grim mask, red-on-red eyes narrow.

 

“Only way to go is up,” he said.  He turned toward the upward ramp, mace in his hand.  A creature that could do what he had just seen deserved every moment of the painful death the dremora had suffered under Zudarra's fangs.  He was troubled by no dram of pity.

 

As he regained full mastery of his thoughts he noted, as he had expected, that the claim that she was not hungry had been a lie.  It would always be a lie.  A vampire was never sated.

 

Up certainly seemed the wrong way to go if they wanted to escape, but Saraven was correct.  They had no other choice.  She followed him, restraining herself from running past.  The Dunmer's pace was excruciatingly slow to her.  Zudarra felt that she could fly through these halls like lightning, crushing every daedra in her path with the slightest touch.  She realized, in the back of her mind, that such thoughts were idiotic and she ought to be cautious.  But it was hard to think rationally with the lifeblood of an immortal churning in her belly, imbuing her own blood with its essence.  She yearned for that taste of power again.

 

“I don't know how good you elves can hear, but there's at least two people moving in the room at the top,” she whispered.  In front of her, he nodded.  The answer was probably not as well as a vampire who is also a Khajiit, but there was no benefit to explaining that.  The ramp spiraled up and up and was annoyingly steep.  Nothing in this place seemed designed for comfort, but Zudarra found the claws that wept blood to be a pleasant touch.  She wondered whose blood, exactly, dripped from those spikes.

 

Zudarra moved slowly, but nothing could stop the faint clattering of her plates.  The daedra above would most likely hear before she reached the top, but perhaps they would assume that Zudarra was the dremora she had killed.

 

They didn't.  Heavy boots thudded against the ground and a pair of snarling black faces appeared over the top of the slope.

 

“Bleed, churls!” the foremost cried, charging at Saraven with a war axe already dripping with another's blood.

 

Saraven had been concentrating on keeping purchase on the slick black floor.  There was so much blood everywhere, weeping from the very architecture.  Surely they could not possibly have killed this many people and stuffed them into the walls already?  

 

Horrid speculation was interrupted by the charging dremora.  Saraven lifted an impassive face to the demon, hefting the mace.  Then he whirled to one side, dodging around a hanging spike in the wall, and attempted to club the demon in the head while his own weight and the force of the missed swing were still dragging him down-slope.  The mace impacted on the back of his neck.  He roared as he pitched forward off-balance, tumbling head over heels.  

 

Saraven could not stop to check what Zudarra was doing.  The second demon was clad in a robe, and he realized what that meant about a second before the lightning hit him.  His back arched as he contorted in agony, flesh burning where it touched and burning again as it earthed itself through his feet.  Through the ringing in his ears he heard the dremora's echoing laughter as he staggered, rebounded from the wall – the spike bruised his arm through his mail – and fell to his knees.

 

The first dremora came tumbling to the ground beside her and Zudarra stomped down on the back of its head with both feet.  She heard and felt the skull crushing under her broad pads at the same time ozone and burning flesh reached her nose, and looked up in time to see Saraven go down.  

 

With a furious roar she launched forward, black claws outstretched and fangs gleaming.  The mage shrieked as the vampire's claws sunk into his shoulders and fangs into his unprotected neck.  She hadn't been able to drink a single drop before white-hot agony ripped from Zudarra's stomach, out through her limbs and down through her blood-stained footpads.  Steam rose from the gaps in her armor as fur and flesh burned.  The dremora had loosed its lightning underhand, hitting her cuirass.  Without thinking Zudarra jerked back, fangs ripping through flesh as she moved.  Jets of dark blood pulsed from the exposed artery, spraying Zudarra's face and armor.  Her mouth hung open as she fell to the ground with the dremora, lamenting the loss of blood even more than the pain of electrocution.

 

Saraven rested a fist against the ground, struggling to remain conscious, as he listened to the sound of Zudarra wreaking havok.  By the time he was able to concentrate enough to heal himself – soft blue light in the black hall, out of place as a butterfly in an abattoir – both dremora were dead.  He climbed to his feet, looking at the movement of one steel-pauldroned shoulder as she breathed.  They didn't really have to breathe, vampires.  They couldn't drown or suffocate.  It was just a habit that hung on from life.  Some of the older ones would forget to try, and that was how you caught them even when their imitation of life was otherwise very convincing.

 

“You are strong,” he said harshly.  “Get up.”  Then he turned to climb down the slope to get his mace.  He found the dropped war axe at the very bottom of the hallway and picked it up with his other hand to carry back up and drop at the top threshold, in front of her and the corpse.

 

Zudarra growled at the command -- she didn't need to be told the obvious -- but clambered to her feet, a spiral of blue enveloping her body.  The spell was effortless and twice as powerful as it ever had been, she noted.  She barely felt a dip in her reserve.  She flexed her limbs, testing her movement.  She was completely healed of her burns.  The scent of blood that gushed out onto the floor was maddening, but drinking from a corpse had always been unappealing no matter how fresh it was.  

 

She snatched up the axe, twirling the heavy thing in her palm as she examined it.

 

“Still bloody,” she remarked.  Perhaps the troops were just returning from Kvatch.  If so, it didn't bode well for them.

 

At the top of the slope was a room very similar to the one below, but smaller and with only one door.  Zudarra pried it open easily, a blast of oppressively hot air hitting her in the face as it slammed open.   The door lead to  _ outside _ , but the world beyond was nothing mortal eyes had ever known.

 

Red lightning flashed in heavy black clouds that churned far too close, as if they sky weren't as far away from the ground here as it was on Nirn.  Beyond them stretched an impossibly long and narrow walkway with no guardrails other than a line of short claws that would do nothing to stop one's fall.  It lead to a black tower that must be very much like the one they had come from, tall and thick with a flat top and edged with wicked spikes that curved towards the sky.  To Zudarra it looked like the gauntlet of Dagon himself rising up from ground.  The door at the end of the walkway was at the midpoint of the tower.

 

Below them lay a dead brown wasteland, an island surrounded by oceans of lava that stretched as far as the eye could see.  She saw other towers rising on the horizon, but couldn't make out the land they must have stood on.  The ground was cracked and dry, completely devoid of life other than strange red roots that crawled across the land like demonic fingers and the same fleshy pods they had seen down below clustered on rocks or hanging from crooked stone pillars.

 

On a large tract of dusty land below stood the same portal Zudarra had seen in Kvatch.  She knew it to be the same from the deep claw marks in the ground leading up to it, the same type of tracks those iron caterpillar legs would have made if they walked over dry dirt.  Swarms of dremora, clannfear and scamp marched down below, all of them keeping formation with others of their own species.  Most were arriving from the gate, some of the dremora dragging thrashing prisoners along with them.

 

“Kvatch is destroyed,” Zudarra finally breathed after what seemed like an eternity, staring at the scene before them in awe.  “I saw some type of giant machine come through there earlier.”  She did not sound particularly concerned.  It all seemed like a dream she would wake from at any moment.

 

Saraven stood behind her, leaning to one side to look out at the scene of hellish alienness.  This was the Deadlands indeed, a place of fire and blood and stone.  There would be no water here, no food, no way for a mortal to survive once their body ran out of reserves.  Zudarra could live here forever, of course.  That was a privilege of undeath, if you didn't find the price high.

 

He was already hot and thirsty.  He had been packing that away in the place where all mortal discomforts belonged, shoring up his inner fortifications.

 

_ Why now?  The blood of Akatosh has always defended the Empire from daedric invasion.  Mehrunes Dagon knows this. _

 

It wouldn't matter to him of course.  He would be dead.  

 

“Walk out or move, please,” he said now, quite calmly.  “Day and a half isn't long to try and accomplish anything, so I'd better get moving.”

 

A pillar of yellow-orange light speared the sky above the tower opposite, the black clouds boiling around it.  He could not see the hole in the roof where it emerged, but he did notice that it was the same color as the membrane at the center of the great gate below.  That had to mean something.

 

Zudarra snorted.  What an impertinent mortal, to be ordering around a vampire twice his size!  The walkway was too narrow for her to let him pass, so she walked out ahead of him.

 

“What is there to 'accomplish'?” she asked derisively, keeping her eyes on the walkway in front of her.  Even a fall from this high would not kill a vampire, but the mob of daedra below them certainly would.  “Kvatch is gone and those screaming sods down there don't stand a chance.  You can't take on a whole army.  We have to find someplace to hide, wait for the troops to disperse, and get down to that gate.”

 

“When the mob's dispersed, the gate'll close,” Saraven said.  “And then there will be no getting back into Nirn at all.  Something's holding it open.  I'm going to find it and break it.  You want to build a life for yourself here in the Deadlands, be my guest.”  The thought amused him as he stepped out onto the walkway, eyes on the vampire's back.

 

“Maybe that's the best solution,” he said.  “You're fed forever, and as my last act I bring death and torment to scores of dremora.”  It was not how he had wanted it all to end, but it was better than dying while accomplishing nothing at all.

 

Zudarra frowned as she listened to the Dunmer talk, anxiety mounting as she realized he was serious.  She could not build a life in a world full of daedra who would try to kill her on sight, and even if she could... what was there to do here?  The arena, her mother, everything she'd ever known was back in Cyrodiil.  Merely surviving wasn't enough.

 

But Saraven viewed her like a mindless animal, so he assumed that was enough.  For all the time he had spent around vampires, she found it odd that their personhood was so invisible to him.  Saraven kept making references to her status as undead, but if either of them were walking dead, it was  _ him. _

 

The mer was little better than a mindless automaton, following a joyless path because he felt he ought to, not because he really wanted to.  Zudarra had dreams and hopes and ambitions!  She wasn't going to let him throw both of their lives away.

 

The Khajiit whirled on him then, glowering down at Saraven with her lips curled back over her fangs.

 

“You'll help me get out of here or you'll die a meaningless death,” she snarled.  “After we leave you can run right back in if you wish, but I'm not going to lay down and die just because you've given up on life!”

 

He stopped moving forward, but he didn't step back, patiently waiting for her to finish speaking.  Saraven considered his options.  Under normal circumstances he might be able to prevent her from throwing him off the bridge.  Now she was even faster and stronger than normal, and he was plagued by whatever malaise had clung to him since the road to Kvatch.  He didn't like his chances.  And that would be a waste of his day and a half.  If what he wanted was to harm the invaders, he would do more harm alive and chasing Zudarra through the gate than dead on the ground below.

 

“I can't stop you,” he said.  “And I'd rather not waste my time arguing.”  There was no fear in his voice, only a dull admission of the facts.

 

“Glad we cleared that up,” Zudarra said sharply, smiling in self-satisfaction as she turned away.  She strode purposefully forward, head below her hunched shoulders and ears trained behind her for any sign of dissent.  He might still blast her with fire or try to shove her off the ledge, but if Saraven did either of those things he'd be coming down with her.

 

Even from so far away they could hear the screams of the lucid prisoners below.  A lot of them were unconscious or so badly damaged that they probably wouldn't live much longer, anyway.  Zudarra's stomach twisted in knots as she imagined the torture they would experience, that Zudarra herself had so narrowly escaped.  She may be a monster, but she didn't delight in prolonged suffering.  To win a battle was her own triumph.  The feelings of her opponent were unimportant.

 

The troops had reached the doors at the base of the tower.  Zudarra stopped and looked behind her.  They were at the midway point between the towers, so she could see the bottom of the tower from which they had come.  Dremora soldiers clustered around the base of that one, too.  

 

_ Shit _ .

 

“We need to hurry!” she said, breaking into a run.  At the end of the walkway she ripped aside the door, and looked over her shoulder for Saraven.  She always forgot how much faster she was.  It was a constant annoyance.  In the arena, Zudarra had to scale back her supernatural speed to keep from arousing suspicion.

 

The interior of this tower was much like the other, all black walls and high pillars and spikes.  If not for the mounting fear at being surrounded by dremora on all sides, Zudarra might have rolled her eyes.  There was actually a fountain mounted in the center of this room, a tall jet of blood bubbling up out of a basin lined with claws.  It was surrounded by benches.  Again she was curious about whose blood it might be and how it had come to be in a fountain, but there wasn't the time for speculation.

 

A hall on the right lead downslope, and a hall on the left led up.  Directly in front lay of them lay another door.  They couldn't go down and meet the dremora, but to go up would be to trap themselves.  In a blur Zudarra stood in front of the door, leaning forward to listen.  There weren't any voices on the other side, but there was a strange vibrating hum.

 

Saraven could not keep up with her, running, but he wasn't far behind.  He had worn mithral for so many years that it did not weigh him down (being without it felt as if he were floating in deep water, buoyant, weightless).  He was glad enough to be off the bridge.  He did not look at the scene of horror below above once, mouth folded grimly down.  A flare of anger quickened him, piercing the lead vest of despair.  Whatever he and Zudarra did, they could not save the ones below who still lived; whatever they tried, it was too late for Kvatch.

 

He looked around the tower room as he approached her, mace in hand.  Corridor up, corridor down.  Down was hordes of dremora.  Up was probably more dremora yet.  He did not hear anything from the door she was leaning against; but then, he did not have a Khajiit's ears.  He felt mildly curious about what the third option could possibly be.  Another torture room, perhaps.  The place where the horrible flesh-cocoons were made.  It would not be something pleasant in Dagon's domain.

 

Zudarra pried this door open more carefully, hoping to find something innocuous that they could hide within.  Instead she found a blinding pillar of light that sliced through the center of the tower, thrumming with energy.  It warmed Zudarra's face, the oppressive weight of the ancient power pressing against her as soon as the door had opened.  A veiny, blood-colored skin stretched across the ceiling far above them, with only a pinprick of a hole for the pillar to pass through. 

 

The space was ringed by a walkway, this one more comfortably wide and with handrails to keep the observer from pitching over the side.  The handrail seemed to be home grown, the bars made from black, bony protrusions of varied height.  The ancient stone of the towers all seemed so organic.  Zudarra couldn't decide if it were truly alive or merely carved to appear that way.  There were multiple doors all around the ring.

 

Harsh laughter and a chorus of voices echoed from the bottom.  Zudarra walked forward cautiously and peered over the rail, then quickly pulled back.  The bottom floor was swarming with dremora, the crimson inlay of their armor glowing vibrant in the light of the fiery well that the pillar rose from.  Somethin g within belly her clenched.

 

Saraven followed her out, leaning his back to the wall as he looked up and down.  The sheer height of the thing didn't seem real.  He'd never been up White Gold Tower, but this had to be close to it in size.  Power thrummed against his skin, power, heat, the vicious uncontainable force of an alien life and light.

 

“Meridia,” he whispered.  His head swam for a moment, one hand raised to the wall, but now was not the time, too soon, too soon!  It was hard enough to keep up with Zudarra as it was!

 

He breathed deeply, willing his head to clear.  After a moment it did.  He turned to start up the walkway, mace clutched in his hand.  He tugged the scroll of Silence free from his belt with the other.  He did not wish to roll all the way back down the ramp if they encountered another caster, and it seemed unlikely that the upper levels were empty - 

 

A dremora was on his way out of one of the clawed doors up ahead, the portal making a now-familiar grinding sound as it shut behind him.  The daedra was armored, but he had not yet seen them, turned away as he started up the walkway toward a higher level.  Saraven sprinted up behind him – his thighs burned, forcing his legs up the steep walkway – and swung the mace just as the creature turned.  The dremora made a startled, annoyed sound, grabbed at the hand-rail, and pitched over the side.  Saraven leaned over to watch him fall into the yellow-orange shaft.  The dremora's scream was terrifyingly high-pitched in the instant before it cut off, armor and body vanishing in a puff of sparks as they disintegrated in the fervent heat.  No one below seemed to have noticed.  Screams were probably very commonplace here.

 

Zudarra watched the dremora fall with raised brows, mildly impressed.  Saraven was trying his best to act strong and pull his weight, but she could smell his weakness.  He would run out of steam soon if he did not conserve his energy.  What could posses a man so, to care so little for his own life?

 

No sounds stirred from the room the dremora had come from, so Zudarra shoved open the door and stepped inside.  She knew Saraven would just love to get to the top and find out where that pillar was leading, but it was more sensible to look for a hiding place.  He'd benefit from a rest, too.

 

She had been wrong -- the room wasn't empty, although it's sole occupant had been standing very still.  A long and flat crocodilian muzzle thrust out from the upwards sloping hallway at the end of the room, followed by a huge head that turned to look straight at Zudarra, yellow eye blinking.  

 

“Hrissskaar aas aaa!” the creature growled, stepping into the red light of the narrow windows.  She assumed it to be a daedroth, although even Zudarra had never seen one in person before.  They had a penchant for turning on their conjurers and were rarely seen in Cyrodiil because of it.  Like Argonians, it was reptilian and bipedal, although the similarities ended there.  Four-fingered, heavy-clawed hands tipped the ends of long arms that nearly grazed the ground as it lumbered forward.  The body was covered in thick grayish scales, its own natural plate armor.  A monstrous tail as thick as her thigh at the base followed as the demon emerged from the corridor.  It was covered in a line spikes from nose to tail tip.

 

The daedroth's maw opened wide, displaying long crooked teeth in the second before it belched a fireball at Zudarra.  She darted behind a pillar and the blast roared by to explode against the wall.  The door was beginning its slow grind shut.

 

Saraven opened his mouth to object.  Time was short, and he was about to urge that they continue upward.  Then he heard the voice, hairs standing up on the back of his neck.  Zudarra vanished inside and he heard the roar of fire before he had even reached the door.  He slid between the two halves as they began to shut, stepping to one side of the portal.  He could not see the vampire, but he saw the daedra, a spike-backed saurian that must weigh as much as two dremora in armor.  He flipped the scroll open as the glitter of light on his mithril mail attracted the creature's attention.  It hissed something else in a tongue he did not understand, and then he pointed at it and shouted, 

 

“Sa'av!”  The scroll evaporated, disintegrating even as the magicka shot forth.  The creature tried to dodge, but it was too big and heavy to readily skip to one side.  The green spiral of power impacted on its shoulder.  It gaped its jaws at him, but no fire emerged.

 

“Thirty seconds,” he said, for Zudarra's benefit, and then the daedroth charged him.  He stood quite still for seconds, watching the thing thundering down on him across the black stone floor, and at the last moment he dove forward between its legs, rolling between its right leg and tail.  He slammed the mace into its groin as hard as he could from behind – there was no point in trying to hit it in the spine when it was covered with bony plates.  It roared and tried to smash him with the tail.  He jumped over it and dodged behind one of the pillars that supported the distant roof, a silver flash in and out of the dim red light.

 

Zudarra whirled around the corner of the pillar, axe slamming into the side of its plated neck.  Her eyes widened as the axe glanced off the dull scales, leaving a deep scratch on the surface.  The daedroth's flesh was not cut.  A clawed hand shot out to club Zudarra's head, but she easily danced away from its reach.  The daedroth thudded after her, more sibilant curses hissing from its mouth.

 

She was too big and cumbersome in her armor to get under its belly, but Saraven was not.

 

“Trade!” she shouted, tossing her axe over the creature's head in a wide arc.

 

The daedroth snarled and snapped at the flying axe, but it was too late, the thing had already passed.  Saraven stepped from behind the pillar and snatched the weapon out of the air, then sent the mace skidding across the floor behind the creature, striking sparks that sputtered and died as they struck.  There was no time to think or consider it, only time to act.  The daedroth spun to try and bat away the mace, but again, it was too late.  Its swinging tail actually flicked the weapon toward Zudarra.  She scooped up the mace as she ran forward.

 

The Dunmer took a running start and flung himself forward feet-first, sliding across the floor with a horrid grind of mithril boots against stone floor.  The daedroth's jaws closed belatedly above his head as he slid under its belly with the axe upraised.  Momentum threw his entire weight into the contact of axe with belly scales, and he heard the wet sklush of the wound opening behind him as he slid.  He had to roll frantically sideways to get out from under the tail before it slammed down.  The daedroth staggered, intestines hanging from the new gash in its belly as what seemed like gallons of blood gushed out.  Saraven had cut deep enough to sever the abdominal aorta.  

 

The monster screamed at them both, claws spread wide, and then fell forward with almost dreamlike majesty.  The floor shook with the impact of its weight.

 

Saraven rested his elbow on one knee as he looked across the giant carcass at Zudarra.  His shoulders heaved as he tried to get his breath back.

 

“Can't believe you did that,” he said.  His white eyebrows were upraised with genuine surprise.

 

The intoxicating perfume of daedric blood hit Zudarra hard; she raised her head, lips parted as she scented the air.  It was nearly painful to leave it without having a taste.  Saraven's words shook her back to reality.

 

“You can't believe I saved both our lives?” she asked with her usual arrogance.  “I do not hate you the way you hate me.  I'd rather live than let us both die just to spite you.”  She rested the mace against her shoulder.  There was no pressing need to trade again; she was proficient in both.  Neither had the reach she preferred, but now was not the time to be picky.

 

Saraven rose to his feet, flexing his shoulders wearily.  “I don't hate you.”  He was surprised to realize that it was true.  He had talked with a fair number of vampires over the last ten years of his – he had to call it service, even if there was no church that gave him orders.  They would talk, and then they would attack him at the predictable moment, and then he would kill them.  This time he had frozen up and she had escaped, and then she had come back to haunt him through the Hell into which they were both now delivered.  And she had saved him.  And he had saved her.

 

_ Where does that leave me?  _ he wondered.  Would Meridia damn him for not trying to kill her the instant he was out of his cage?  Or were those moments of entrapment in his own mind an indictment, that he had done so much violence that he was losing his capacity for it?  

 

He had not been ambushed by evil memory while fighting the dremoras or the daedroth, he realized suddenly.  It was only when he tried to raise his hand to Zudarra that it happened.  Only her.  He looked over at her again, thunderstruck.

 

“I couldn't hurt you,” he said slowly.  “Every time I've tried I started seeing things.”

 

Nothing changed on the vampire's face to indicate her thoughts.  Why would Saraven admit weakness to her?  He was tired and probably stupid from hunger and thirst, she reasoned.  He might start to see her as an ally and not a threat if Zudarra played her cards right.

 

At his weakest moment she would enthrall him.  He was strong, but not invulnerable to mortal needs.  He would be the perfect slave, full of that delectable blood that must put Vandalion's to shame and able to help defend her if ever another hunter should bother her.  That was all assuming she ever managed to get out of this place alive, of course.

 

“You probably shouldn't tell me that,” Zudarra said wryly after a moment of thought.  Her head tilted to the side.  “What things, exactly?”

 

“Probably shouldn't.”  He turned toward the upward ramp, whirling the axe in his hand once to fling blood from the blade.  “Things that I remember.  Dead vampires.  Dead victims of vampires.  My – people I knew.”

 

He knew it was stupid.  If even Zudarra suggested he stop, it had to be very stupid indeed.  But she was the closest thing to an ally that he had in this place, and it was a day and a half – closer to a day, now? - until he would be dead from dehydration in any case.  He wouldn't be more dead from having spoken to the vampire.

 

His armor was starting to feel heavy.  He'd worn it for twelve to fourteen hours a day for most of his adult life now.  That was probably a bad sign.  He still moved well, not yet gone clumsy and slow, but it was a matter of time.

 

There was an increasingly loud hum from above them.  He felt it in the bases of his teeth, up and down the length of his spine.  They were approaching the membranous dome from beneath.  As he climbed the ramp, thighs aching, he tried to pick out the sound of movement or voices from above, but the growing noise drowned everything out.  There was no warning at all before a dremora in a black robe – another visibly female creature, he hadn't seen many of those today – rounded the corner.  She was taken by surprise as well, mouth open in a snarl, raising her hands as she prepared to unleash flame or lightning.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Saraven's admission was sobering, and for a _very_ brief moment, Zudarra felt... what was it?  Not guilt; she was not the one to have killed all those people.  Was it sorrow, pity?  She'd been minding her own business and not hurting anyone when Saraven rode up beside her with a chip on his shoulder.   _He_ provoked _her_ , so why should Zudarra feel anything for him?  She'd seen plenty of death herself, but you didn't see her moping around for it!  

 

Zudarra shoved aside the strange emotion, forcing it back down into whatever little hole it had leaked from and corking it with the self-satisfied thought that he was weak and therefore undeserving of her consideration.

 

 _His dead friends were probably asking for, anyway,_ Zudarra told herself.  

 

Her thoughts were cut short by the sudden appearance of another dremora, who loosed a blast of fire at them.  Zudarra easily dodged from behind the Dunmer and sprinted up the slope on Saraven's left to flank the mage.  Perhaps it was stupid to get so close, but Saraven was weakened and having two targets in her face would force the mage to leave herself open to one of them.

 

Zudarra slammed her mace down at the dremora's arm, raised in preparation for another spell, but a shell of magicka flashed around her and the weapon lost its momentum as it passed through the purple barrier.  It banged ineffectively against the dremora, only managing to knock down the arm with little more than a bruise.  Flames curled in her fingers again.

 

The vampire passed him in a blur, and he knew exactly what had happened only when the mace stopped moving, the thin barrier of a shield spell materializing over the dremora's flesh and clothing.  Well, there were ways of dealing with that.  Saraven threw the axe overhand at her shin.  It hit without enough impact to cut but certainly enough to knock her off-balance.  The dremora fell to one knee, cursing them in her own tongue.  Saraven leaned down far enough to catch the handle of the axe as it slid back toward him.

 

Zudarra was on the dremora's throat the moment she went down, grabbing her by the wrists to keep her from casting.  The dremora's flesh resisted her fangs thanks to the spell, but it was not enough to stop a hungry vampire from pushing through.  The dremora screamed as the fangs punctured her artery, fire bursting from both hands.  The flames singed Zudarra's fingers but she held fast as she drank.  The blood was an ecstasy equal to her earlier meal, but this time Zudarra was not so ravenous and found herself more aware of her surroundings.  

 

Saraven threw himself flat against the wall to avoid the flames.  Zudarra didn't seem to care, muzzle fastened to the daedra's throat.  Well, that was no surprise.  He had seen vampires that were feeding ignore the walls falling down around their ears.

 

* * *

 

Kynreeve Kahzarku of the Sharduloxis Clan did not care for the mortal world of Nirn.  The stench of too many living things- flowers and leaves and whatnot- carried on bitterly cold winds made him sick every time he stepped foot in it.  The sky and landscape were all wrong, colored in offensive greens and blues.  Worst of all were the inexplicable rivers and oceans of _water_.  Undrinkable, cold, and teeming with filthy creatures called feesh and dirtcrabs that continually excreted waste, which the mortals bathed in and drank daily.  

 

The land crawled with worms calling themselves Chimer or Redguard or Ayleid or whatever other fancy names they invented, but all of them were exactly the same: impotent wretches who lived meaningless lives and died without honor in the blink of an eye.  Their greatest cities took generations to build, none of them ever seeing the fruits of their labors before they turned to dust and were forgotten.  A few of the more intelligent ones gave themselves over to Lord Dagon or another Prince, desperately grasping at immortality.  Their souls would live forever in Oblivion, but in their proper station: in the Deadlands, as rewards and playthings for the Kyn of highest honor.

 

Kahzarku yearned for the blood springs and the obsidian fields of his homeland, Jurn, but for the last three hetta he'd been stationed here at Ganonah instead, overseeing the construction of the great Sigil Keeps.

 

In what mortals referred to as the First Era, Kahzarku had spent several resentful mortal years in the service of an Ayleid mage.  His experience on Nirn, as well as his prestigious history as a valiant warrior, was part of the reason he had been chosen as one of the Kynreeve to oversee the invasion of Cyrodiil.  He did not relish a return to that ugly world, but to quench his blade with the blood of mortals was a privilege that made all his labors at Ganonah worth the toil.

 

Angry crimson swirls decorated the skin of Kahzarku's face.  Every line had been earned by his honorable deeds, foes dispatched in battle or services rendered in the name of Mighty Lord Dagon of Sacred Unutterable Protonymic.  The rings carved into his horns represented his status as Kynreeve, as did the high upwards-arching claws of his pauldrons and the seal on his left breast, the eye of the Sharduloxis.  Lesser dremora averted their eyes as he passed, as was the correct order of things.

 

He had recently returned to the Keep from the place called Kvatch, as first blood was his right as Kynreeve, and now Kahzarku strolled through the Sigillum Sanguis to consult with his two highest ranking mages.  They had been responsible for the opening and maintaining of the great gate.  The siege was nearly over, the bulk of their troops now returning with trophies of war in tow.  He stopped before one of his black-robed men.  Every Keep was assigned two Kynval mages; presently, the other was patrolling below.

 

They were on the lower floor of the Sigillum, a great dome that housed the sigil stone.  A narrow ring of stone comprised the walkway on the outer edge, a fiery pillar rising from the bottom of the tower miles below them and up through the center of this dome.  This energy which enabled them to pass the limin into Mundus was generated by the Prince himself, a tiny fragment of His immeasurable power.  A tarp of living skin stretched over the hole that the pillar rose from to protect the well of fire below.  The veiny red skin had once been the bodies of many mortals, now twisted into a more useful form to better serve their Lord.  Kahzarku smiled as he passed near them, sensing the agony of their tortured souls.

 

“Report, worm!” Kahzarku barked to one of the mages, Kynval Morder of the Sharduloxis.

 

“The limin remains weak, Kynreeve,” Morder replied sharply, looking Kahzarku in the eye now that he had been addressed.  “There is no risk of the gate closing prematurely, although we recommend closing it to prevent access to our lands by mortals as soon as possible.”

 

Kahzarku knew that their primary objective had not yet been achieved.  The remaining troops were searching for the body of Martin Septim.  Until he was found, all gates would remain open and Kvatch would be held.  There was no point in explaining this to an inferior.  He turned, gauntleted hands clasped behind his back and strode up the stairs, a line of black spikes growing from the walls, to examine the sigil stone himself.  It was an artifact of great power and beauty, marked with a blessed rune by Lord Dagon himself.  It was another privilege of Kahzarku's station that he could gaze upon its wonder.

 

Kahzarku jerked his head towards the sudden piercing scream.  It came from below, where Hallori had just passed.

 

“Stay with the stone,” he said to Morder, and turned down the spiraling steps, dragging the heavy battle axe from his back.  As he cleared the dome, Kahzarku growled in rage at the shameful sight of his own clan member bested by mortals.  He stomped towards them, daedric boots clanking heavily against the walkway, transferring the giant axe to his right hand.

 

“Vile scum!” he screamed in a voice like claws raking across rusty metal.

 

Saraven's head jerked up at the voice screaming in Cyrodilic.  The slope grew much less steep up ahead, curving around into a hallway with a doorless entry that led out into a larger space that he just had time to register was full of red.  A tall dremora in heavy armor loomed into view, the insignia of an eye decorating one breast of his cuirass.

 

“Zudarra,” he hissed, and ran forward.  The creature had a two-handed weapon, an axe much larger and heavier than the one Saraven carried.  He swung it in both hands as Saraven moved forward, trying for an easy decapitation, but the Dunmer threw himself down and skidded under the blade.  The big dremora was faster than he expected.  One back-thrust boot kicked at him before he could rise, solidly impacting on his right side and hurling him into the slight incline.  His head bounced against the stone floor before he could stop it, and the world erupted into white stars.  His hand kept its convulsive grip on the weapon as he rolled weakly away, waiting for his vision to clear enough to see the enemy.

 

Zudarra was aware of the newcomer through the haze of pleasure as she fed.  No matter how badly she wanted just another mouthful of blood, he had to be dealt with.  The mage was sagging in her grasp now, not yet dead but severely weakened.  She grabbed up the mace she had dropped and leapt back to take stock of the situation as Saraven went down, her muscles surging with the dremora's tremendous power.  She grinned at the demon that stalked forward, blood dripping from her teeth.  But he did not charge her as she expected.

 

“Pathetic!” Kahzarku growled, grabbing Hallori by her bloodied neck.  She moaned as the Kynreeve raised her limp body in the air and chucked her over the rail, her cry trailing off as she fell.  Zudarra raised her brows at the callous display, shock replacing the cocky grin.  The body disintegrated in the pillar of fire several floors below them with a distant bang and a flash of light.  

 

With a roar Kahzarku charged forward with axe held underhand, rage and hate embedded in every line of his tattooed face.  Zudarra was a blur as she darted left and raced past him up the slope towards where Saraven had fallen.  The dremora anticipated her move and whirled as he swung, slamming Zudarra in the back with the bladed edge.  She pitched forward, catching herself on hands and knees, knuckles of her weapon hand slamming against the ground.

 

Saraven waited a blow that never came, the world silent around him.  He shoved himself upright against the wall, teeth gritted against the throbbing pain in his head as his vision slowly cleared.  Sound returned in a slow, increasing roar, and he was looking at Zudarra hitting her knees as the dremora stalked forward.  

 

Kahzarku raised a leg and the axe over his head, reading to stomp down on the Khajiit to pin her in place for the blow.  As the axe rose Saraven dropped his shoulder and charged for a point past the dremora's left side, prepared to slash at the right underarm where there was only padding, no armor.  If he had his sword he could even get at the heart from that angle, he had done it before, but now he had only a war-axe.  Needs must.

 

Kahzarku shifted the raised haft in his hands so that it angled straight down with his hands near the head and stabbed down at the Dunmer as he neared, letting his foot drop to the floor instead of Zudarra to brace himself.  Zudarra rolled onto her side away from them and kicked out at the dremora's leg.  His body barely jerked at the impact.

 

The haft of the greataxe slammed down into Saraven's shoulder, knocking him to one knee as pain lanced through that side of his body.  The joint dislocated with a loud CRACK-POP.  The fingers of his right hand lost their grip, and he caught the axe with his left even as he cried out in pain.  He swung for the padding at the back of the daedra's right knee as he desperately twisted his upper body, right arm swinging useless at his side.

 

Kahzarku clanged heavily onto one knee as he was struck.  Zudarra swung her mace at the dremora's unarmored head even as she twisted up into a sitting position.  Sparks flew as the blade of his axe caught against a spike of the mace.  Zudarra's left hand flew up to support her right, using the stolen strength of both arms to push back against the dremora's axe.  They both snarled in bestial rage, glaring at one another as their arms fought to wrench the weapon from the other's hands.

 

Both were oblivious to the stampede of boots and the war cries from the walkway below.  The crowd of dremora had seen the body falling.

 

Saraven struggled to his feet, gasping for breath.  The corridor seemed to spin, pain in his head, pain in his shoulder, sound trying to fade out again, but there was one more thing, one last important thing.  Zudarra was locked in a grapple with the dremora, and he still had an axe in his hand, and the creature had no helm.  The Dunmer breathed deeply, trying to steady himself as he gathered the last of his strength.  Then he swung the axe with all his might at the base of the daedra's skull, just above the heavy gorget.

 

The axe sliced through flesh and skull and brains with a hard thwack as blade scraped against bone and the dremora screamed, not in pain but in fury.  He leaned forward with the last of his dying strength and yanked the mace from Zudarra's hands with so much force that his own axe went flying as well.  The weapons clattered down the slope and Kahzarku toppled forward, dead.  Zudarra looked up at Saraven in wide-eyed astonishment as she hauled herself to her feet, then behind him.

 

The army of angry dremora thundered up the walkway on the loop just below them; she could see them through the rail.

 

This was it.  Saraven was crippled.  Her weapon was gone.  They were outnumbered by at least fifty monsters.  There was no time to discuss it; Zudarra grabbed Saraven by the armpits and threw him over her shoulder, then turned and ran up the slope.

 

Saraven's world spun and dropped, and for several seconds he knew nothing at all.  Jolting movement yanked him unwillingly back to painful consciousness.  He was being carried, head-down over someone's shoulder.  A gray tabby tail lashed in front of his eyes as he gritted his teeth and craned his neck back to look.  

 

_Why is she carrying me?_

 

That was a question that would have to wait.  He tried to close his right hand and could not.  It hung useless from his shoulder.  He used the left one instead, blue power spiraling up his body to clear his aching head.  With it went the last of his power.  His right arm remained out of joint.  It would take an incredibly powerful healing spell to re-set it.  Normally he would get it back into the socket manually and then heal the damage that remained, and there was no time for that.  He could hear the distant clatter of running feet.  They were pursued.

 

From the right, the hum that had been increasingly audible as they climbed was teeth-settingly loud.  He could hear a voice raised in the dremora language from that direction.

 

“I can run,” he shouted, raising his voice with an effort.  It sounded as though it came from far away, as if the distance between mouth and ears were miles instead of inches.

 

They were above the veiny membrane now, inside a tall dome of ancient stone with a hole cut in the center.  Red thunder and lightning crackled in the dark clouds above.  The pillar of light came to an end above them, some tiny black object floating at the apex of the pillar.  It was encircled by a metal ring, held from the ceiling with thick chains.  Black spikes that grew from the wall formed a staircase to a second floor, a ring against the wall like this one, but with a balcony jutting out from which the top of the pillar could be accessed.  A robed dremora stood there, watching them.

 

 _We have to get up there!_  Zudarra wasn't sure how, but maybe if they stood on that ring at the top of the pillar, they could climb those chains to the ceiling and escape through the hole.   _And then go where?_  That didn't matter now.  Survival first!

 

Saraven was shouting.  She set him down on his feet as gently as she could, although she doubted his claim.  A lightning bolt from the mage blackened the floor in front of them, heated air blowing against her face.

 

 _What a crap shot._ She glared up at him, waiting to dodge the next cast.  Voices screamed from below.  Their time was running out.

 

Saraven grabbed her arm for a half-second without even thinking, as he would a comrade from the Guild, and turned to sprint up the ramp.  The world lurched and steadied, and his progress was visibly erratic, but he was still running.  The mage reflexively turned to aim at the moving target, the Dunmer sprinting toward him with one arm flopping dead at his side and face fixed in a rictus of defiant agony.  Lightning crackled between them.  Saraven screamed as the spell hit, but he was moving forward, and he kept moving forward, steam rising from the mail of his armor as it burned padding and flesh.  His entire universe was pain, the blur of red narrowing his vision to a pinpoint full of dremora as he lurched toward the last thing between him and the pillar of fire.

 

The dremora and Zudarra both stared in shock as Saraven ran _through_ a bolt of lightning.  The dremora prepared to loose another bolt just as the mortal slammed into him, knocking him off the balcony and onto the sigil stone.  He didn't even have time to scream before his body disintegrated in the glorious fire of Mehrunes Dagon.  The sigil stone, no longer held aloft by the pillar, landed on the soft membrane below and rolled down to the walkway.

 

The pillar of fire burst through the upper dome and Zudarra jerked her head away from the sudden blinding light that filled the room.  The entire structure began to violently shake.

 

“Saraven!” she screamed, but the increasing drone of the pillar and the grinding of rock as the tower trembled drowned out her voice.  The chains snapped under the force of the shaking and the ring collapsed, ripping into the membrane below.

 

Everything was falling!  Huge chunks of ceiling slammed down, chipping off parts of the upper walkway and the stairs.  A piece of ceiling hit the floor nearby and Zudarra felt the ground give way.  She was weightless as she fell, another heavy chunk of stone racing down at her from the ceiling.  She screamed.

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra awoke to complete silence, in her own bed in her basement apartment in the Elven Gardens district.  Usually the scent of frying ham would be wafting down from upstairs.  The cooking of flesh did not produce a particularly pleasant smell nor did it arouse Zudarra's hunger, it just was.  Cania had stopped inviting the Khajiit up for meals months ago.  In fact, her Imperial landlord stopped talking to Zudarra at all unless she had to.  Zudarra was just fine with that.

 

 _Wait, why am I here?_  A chunk of her memory was gone.   _We were cornered at the top of the tower.... fire... everything collapsing all around us..._  So that must mean she had died.

 

 _No!  This can't be the end!_ Zudarra threw aside the coverlet and ran upstairs, door banging against wall as she burst into the upstairs room.

 

The house had been trashed, the tapestries that lined the walls shredded, old and gray with color drained as if exposed to sun damage for years.  The kitchen table, the chairs, the benches all lay in broken rotting pieces on the floor.  Plates and cups had been thrown from overturned cabinets and smashed to shards.   A foggy mist from a blue twilight curled inside the room from windows lined with jagged glass, flowing and swirling almost as if it were alive.  Something was horribly, terribly wrong.  The room smelled of nothing.  No Cania, no old trace of Vandalion or herself, no food or anything other than dust and mold.  The light from outside brought her no physical discomfort.

 

 _It's a dream, then?_  It could be no dream.  Zudarra knew a dream from reality.  The stone under her pads and the light wind that tousled her fur from the smashed windows could be nothing but reality.

 

Zudarra threw open the front door and stepped into the street.  Ruin lay all around her.  Doors had rotted away, stone buildings had toppled, more broken furniture lay scattered by piles of rubble that had once been walls.  Hers was one of the few homes left standing.  No moon or stars shone from the sky above, nor a sun on the horizon.  Nothing but a luminous blue fog lit the scene before her.  The Imperial City had been utterly destroyed, and it looked to have happened a hundred years ago.  Not even the White-Gold Tower, forever a constant in her life, could be seen.

 

And it was so _silent_.  She strained her ears and could not make out a single bird or mortal voice.  There wasn't even the sound of wind despite its evident presence against her fur.  Zudarra wanted to yell, to call out for anyone who might have survived, but she feared her own voice would fall flat in this place.  She had not even her own heartbeat to pound in her ears.  She turned down the street, eyes darting back and forth as she frantically searched the destruction and her mind ground through the confusion, trying to find some explanation for what had happened.

 

A shadow fell across the street in front of her.  Zudarra whirled to see a demon that towered above her, at least nine feet to her six and a quarter.  It had come without warning, but now its cloven hooves clopped with a loud echo as it stepped towards her.  

 

 _Molag Bal._  She knew him immediately.  A flat-nosed face leered down at her, mouth bulging with crooked tusk-like teeth.  He was much like an Orc in some ways, green skinned and broad, but with digitigrade legs and two-fingered hands that ended in thick, curved digits that were something between hoof and claw.  The bald head was too short and flat, the skull oblong.  Two sets of spiral horns flanked the sides of his face, the top set curving upward and the bottom set curving down with merish ears between them.  They seemed impossibly heavy, spanning further than his own shoulders, but the Prince stood tall under the weight of them.  A barbed member, thick as Zudarra's arm, hung between his naked thighs.  

 

She barely had time to take in any of these details before she locked eyes with his and found it impossible to tear her gaze away.  They were nothing more than black holes, yet Zudarra felt she was looking into an ageless void.  Inside those sockets lay a terrifying nothingness that threatened to swallow her up.  

 

Zudarra backed away instinctively, trying to hide the terror on her face and failing.  She was clad only in her underclothes.  Her armor and weapon had not been in her room.  

 

“Be still, my child, you have nothing to fear from me this day.”  Molag Bal's mouth did not open.  The voice echoed from all around her, a terrible cacophony of screams and cries that wove together to form his voice, something thundering deep and resonant below the wails.  Her entire body trembled, calves growing weak.  

 

“You have killed my spy,” the voice continued.  A picture flashed in her mind: the daedroth from the tower, blood gushing from its belly as it fell.  “But I do not seek vengeance for this.  I have brought you here to offer you a deal.  Do my bidding and you shall be rewarded greatly.”

 

Zudarra finally found her voice.  She swallowed first, steeling herself so that it would not shake.

 

“You have nothing I want!” she snarled up at him.  The volume of her voice was pitifully weak after hearing his, which smothered her from every angle.  The voice laughed, a horrible sound overlaid with tortured screams.

 

“Foolish vampire.  Your soul is mine,” he spoke.  Sudden agony lanced through Zudarra's body, shooting out from her heart to her brain and every limb like both fire and ice in her veins.  She jerked up straight, but not under her own power.  An invisible force pressed on her painfully from all sides, on every inch of her body.  The pain intensified as the force tightened against bone and organ, threatening to crush her completely.

 

“When this shell has died- and it will die, no matter how strong or cunning of a vampire you think you are- I will find you, Zudarra.  I will find you in Coldharbour and there you will be tortured for all of our endless days together.  The absence of this torture would be your reward if you serve me.”

 

“You... don't... own.. me!” Zudarra ground from her clenched teeth, the only movement she could make.  Or that Molag Bal allowed her to make.  Again the laughter roared and she felt the pressure lessen on her throat and chest.  “I was never your worshiper!  Being vampire alone gives you no rights to my soul!”

 

“How stupid you are, Zudarra.  In your fervid quest for immortality, you failed to consider the inevitable end to your path.” The invisible hand that held her jerked forward, raising Zudarra to Molag Bal's face, her nose inches away from his.  Hot air that smelled of decay snorted from his nostrils.  She was eye to eye with him now, the black emptiness of nonexistence boring into her soul.  “If torture does not sway your mind, would you prefer... nothing?  It pains me to lose a soul, but one among thousands is a pittance I can allow.  I can destroy you, Zudarra.  I can rend you from existence as easily as you would crush a fly in your palm.”

 

Zudarra saw herself in those eyes, she saw her soul, a pitiful bodiless light, snuffed out like the flame of a candle.  There would be nothing afterward.  No pain, no pleasure, no power, no thought, no _self_.  Unspeakable horror welled inside her.  Zudarra screamed, struggling in the invisible grasp, but she could move nothing other than her head.  Molag Bal waited patiently while she tired herself out.  Finally her head dropped, ears flat against her skull.

 

“I'll do it,” she whispered hoarsely.  Her body was lowered and dropped unceremoniously to the ground, where she fell to her hands and knees.  Zudarra looked up at the Prince, sitting up on her knees with fits clenched beside her.  Her voice shook with fear and anger as she fought to calm herself.  “What do you want me to do?”

 

“Foil Mehrunes Dagon wherever you can and aid those who would do the same,” he replied, staring impassively down at the broken Khajiit.  “He seeks to destroy Mundus and all who reside there, but your world and its souls are _mine_ to possess, do you understand?”

 

Zudarra did not understand.  The confusion was plain on her face.

 

“I don't--”

 

“Our time together is over, little vampire.  You will do as I ask, or you will face a fate far worse than a mortal death.”  The voice faded into a whispering wind and the demon before her vanished to smoke.  The dead world around her crumbled into blackness.  

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Saraven was aware of the impact, and then he fell to his knees on the platform as the dremora vanished into the pillar of flame.  He heard the sound of the sphere being knocked away, and then the world was noise and motion as everything began to shake.  He fell on his face on the membrane, disturbingly hot and damp against exposed skin.  Literally every part of his body hurt, so badly that his dislocated right arm seemed numb by comparison.  He waited for everything else to become numb, too, but it did not happen.  He was fully aware when the walls started to come down and the floor fell away beneath him, and then he was falling as well and he heard Zudarra screaming - 

 

He landed on something hard, knees striking first.  He managed to keep his head from hitting, but he had to land on his right arm to do it and he blacked out again for a second.  Or an hour.  He wasn't sure.  When next he was aware of anything he was lying on his back.  The ground felt blessedly cold against his head and neck and hands, cool air blowing against his face.

 

When he opened his eyes the distant sky was gray.  He inhaled the scent of smoke, then coughed.  His mouth felt like sandpaper.  A weak attempt at casting failed completely, blue sparks fizzling around his fingertips.  Every inch of skin felt raw, scraped by his armor even through the padding, burned at the soles of his feet where the lightning had earthed itself.

 

He rolled his head slowly to look to either side.  The smoking ruins of homes and shops, spars of wood piercing the gray sky.  Stone bridge.  Black stone remains of something massive jutting upward, coils of steam still rising from it.

 

_ The gate is closed. _

 

Blood red eyes snapped open as raindrops hit her nose.  Zudarra looked up at a gray sky.  Not the unnatural sky of the Deadlands, but the familiar dark of a midnight rain shower.  Masser was veiled in clouds, but a sliver of Secunda peeked from an opening.  Zudarra huffed as she pulled herself up to look around her.  For a moment she thought she was still with Molag Bal, until she realized that the blackened husks of houses that lay before her were Kvatch, not the Imperial City.

 

Zudarra was sitting up on his other side, looking around.  That pleased him for reasons that he chose not to examine.  He was dying of thirst and exhaustion and wounds, and not even Meridia could blame him for failing to kill her now.  He wondered if his patron would reject him in his last moments for what he had done.  He supposed he was about to find out.  A weak laugh escaped his cracked lips.

 

Zudarra turned towards the noise beside her.  It was Saraven, alive.  She stared at him numbly and rubbed her arms with her hands, unsure if this was all really happening.

 

It was all real, as real as that place had been.  Somehow, knocking that stone out of the beam caused the tower to destabilize and collapse.  But how did they get home?  Was it Molag Bal's doing?  No.. If he had any influence over Dagon's realm, he wouldn't ask Zudarra to do his dirty work.

 

None of it made any sense.

 

Saraven looked like shit.  Without thinking about it Zudarra pointed her palm at him, expelling blue light that spiraled around his body.  She could heal moderate wounds, but even in perfect physical health he wouldn't last long without sustenance.  

 

“I'm... not... sorry,” he had time to say, and then the magicka charge hit.  His eyelids fluttered in complete astonishment as he felt himself heal.  He still felt dry and weak, but the pain was gone.  He sat up, leaning toward his right side as he propped the useless limb against the ground and shoved with that shoulder.  It resocketed with an unpleasant wet click.  He flexed the fingers.  They worked.

 

Zudarra pushed herself off the ground with her hands and stood.  A tremor ran down her legs.  She was still shaken from her encounter with Molag Bal, but she stood tall, chin thrust high in the face of her fears.  She held out a hand for Saraven to take.  He couldn't die now, if he was to be her thrall.

 

"Come on," she said with neither warmth nor her usual annoyance.  "I left food and water with Vandalion, at the arena."

 

He looked up at her hand blankly for a moment.  Then he shrugged and took it, letting himself be levered upright.  He stood quite still for a moment as he let the head rush pass.  It seemed to last longer than it ought, his stomach clenching.   _ Gods, I'm thirsty. _

 

The world had gone completely upside down.  He was still alive.  Nothing made sense.  So he might as well go along and see what happened next.

 

Besides, she was a powerful creature even if she wasn't as bright as she thought she was.  Even if Meridia wanted none of him from this moment, he owed it to any future victims to stay close to her as long as he could.

 

“Thank you,” he said, and turned toward the Arena beside her.  A drop of water pattered on the ground near his foot with a soft putt.  Then another.  Then another.  Droplets began to strike his head and shoulders as the soft pattering increased.  Rain was falling, hissing in the ruin of the gate and the ruins of Kvatch, making endless ripples in the black water of the moat.

 

The streets were utterly still and empty as they walked.  Fires still smoldered in some of the buildings but they hissed out as the rain doused them, darkening the city even more.  The streets were slick with gore and stank horribly of shit and death, but Zudarra began to notice a good deal of daedric corpses in addition to the mutilated people.  Something had happened to turn the tide while they were inside the Deadlands, but she couldn't imagine what.  Most of the townsfolk were already killed or dying by the time she was captured.  Did reinforcements come from another city?  If so, why wasn't anyone around?

 

Saraven walked beside Zudarra through the dead city of Kvatch.  He, too, noticed the daedric bodies, scamps piled in doorways, clannfear on their backs with their bellies slit open to expose their reeking guts.  If this was the work of the frightened guards he had seen behind their barricades, something powerful had rallied them.  He wondered what it was.

 

_ Perhaps the blood of Akatosh has come to save us after all. _

 

He looked at Zudarra beside him, at the city, at his hands in front of him as he walked.

 

Meridia certainly did not.  If any daedric prince cares for a soul of Nirn it is only as a prize to be won.  He had gradually grown further from his patron in his heart for many months, he realized.  He had been resigned to her service in life and after death.  Now he was alive past expectation and nearly past believing.  

 

The city hadn't merely burned, it had been ravaged by some sort of giant cannon- the machine she had watched emerge from the portal.  Zudarra balked at her first glimpse of the arena as they turned around a corner, passing two-story houses with caved in roofs.  The timbers of the grandstand had burned and collapsed onto the stone lower levels, causing a cave in.  She forgot Saraven and sprinted ahead, leaping over the door that jutted at an angle from the ground.  It had been the entrance to the bloodworks, which was now a heap of rubble and charred logs. 

 

Zudarra crawled over the debris until she found the approximate location of the rest room and tore into the pile, feverishly lobbing planks and stones off to the side.  

 

Saraven was giddy from lack of thirst, food, sleep, walking a ruined city with the vampire who had fought beside him through a daedric fortress.  It seemed less real than the Deadlands had.  So he could not muster much surprise when Zudarra sprinted away beside him and began digging down toward what had once been the Bloodworks.  He dodged a thrown plank that weighed as much as he did, clambering over the ruined structure to follow her.

 

“Vandalion!” she hissed, heaving away a support log that hadn't burned.  It sailed effortlessly through the sky and splintered against the rubble she had already thrown.  Vandalion's corpse lay beneath it, pallid face mottled with bruises from the collapse.  Dead eyes, dark and wet, gazed at nothing under half-opened lids.  His body was still partially concealed under the wall of the bloodworks.  Zudarra stopped her frantic digging and sank to her knees, slamming her fists down on the rubble that lay all around.  A stone cracked in half under the force of her blow, but she didn't notice.  Her shoulders heaved as she seethed in fury, staring at the dead Altmer with fangs clenched.

 

_ I'll tear those fucking daedra from limb to limb, every last one of them!  I'll drink them dry and rip out their throats!  _  The rage began to clear as she realized the uselessness of her threats.  She was one person.  She couldn't possibly kill every last dremora in Oblivion.

 

He was beside her when she found the corpse of the Altmer.  He gazed down at the dead face without expression, hands at his sides.  The rain fell down, plashed on the open eyes, slicked the boards and stones around them.

 

“You never had much of a chance, did you,” he said to the corpse.  

 

Her anger surprised him.  Perhaps the mer had meant something to her after all.  He twitched back without thinking from the sound of breaking stone, keeping his footing out of pure reflex.  The vampire he had fought had been strong, but not this strong.  Drinking the blood of daedra had done something to her.  Well, he was dead if she wanted him dead.  That had been the case from the moment they woke up together in hell.

 

Zudarra reached into the hollow by the body, grasping for the leather strap of her bag and yanked it out, tossing it to Saraven without looking.  More mushy carrots, green-speckled bread and several corked bottles of water would be inside, along with a sizable amount of gold.  

 

He caught the thrown bag easily, one-handed, and then almost fell over when the weight unbalanced him.  Saraven righted himself with difficulty and hauled the thing away to the edge of the ruin to drop on the most unbroken stretch of paving he could find.  There he knelt down and undid the closure to look inside.  He found paper wraps that might contain food, a whiff of mold saying it wasn't in good condition, glass bottles with stoppers, and under that the reason for the weight, heavy bags that clinked when he moved them.  

 

He pulled a bottle out and thumbed loose the stop, sniffing.   _ Water _ .  He took a cautious drink.  His stomach clenched hard when the liquid hit, and he breathed for a moment, willing himself not to throw up.  Then he drank again.  He wanted to swallow all of it at once, but he knew from experience that he would make himself sick if he tried.  Once you were dehydrated past a certain point you had to restore yourself slowly.  

 

Even after being bottled for days inside a bag it was delicious, cold on his raw throat.  He shut his eyes as he drank, giving in to the most pleasurable thing he had felt in days.

 

The Altmer had probably died of smoke inhalation before the grandstand even collapsed on him, Zudarra realized.  If that were true it was probably a peaceful death, like falling asleep, still wrapped in the cottony joy of her recent feeding.

 

What did she care, anyways?  Zudarra cared only that her cattle and squire was gone.  But she shouldn't, not when she had a much better replacement at hand.  She turned away from the man that  had loved her and fed her with unyielding devotion for the past several months, her face empty of all emotion.  Zudarra watched the Dunmer drink instead, from behind and to the side of him.  Rain pattered against her head, matting the fur to her skull and making her blink when droplets hit near her eyes.  Most Khajiits did not like the rain.  She didn't care.  It was appropriate for the current atmosphere and helped conceal the stink of death.

 

Saraven's eyes were closed.  It wouldn't be long before his strength returned.  If Zudarra wanted to dominate his mind, now was her chance.  She would probably never get another.  

 

She flopped heavily down onto a fallen support beam on top of the rubble, the far end lifting up under her weight, and watched him instead.  She wasn't tired, weak, or hungry.  Physically, Zudarra was in her prime.  So why did she feel so weary, so beaten?  She wasn't in the right frame of mind to enthrall him.  Her own thoughts were too discordant.  Even her hatred for Saraven, who dared to attack and insult her, seemed to have washed away with the rain. 

 

_ Foil Mehrunes Dagon wherever you can and aid those who would do the same. _

 

_ I can rend you from existence as easily as you would crush a fly in your palm. _

 

“What will you do now?” she asked, leaning forward with forearms on her thighs.  Her tail was draped limp over the debris, growing heavier with water as minutes passed.

 

Saraven looked up as she spoke, opening his eyes.  He corked the empty bottle and put it away slowly.  He had not expected to live this long.  He was alive, so it was time to go on.

 

“I need to know what happened here, and why,” he said.  She looked limp and defeated sitting there, something he had never seen.  It wasn't an act.  If there was anything he had learned from their acquaintance it was that she was completely without the capacity for convincing deception.

 

He tilted his head, looking at her as he spoke.  “I've given my life to making Cyrodiil safe for people with families, with children.  No one is safe if Dagon's troops can just appear from the Deadlands and annihilate a city.  So I'm going to find out.”

 

He pulled out one of the packages.  It contained, for lack of a better word, bread.  Mold wouldn't kill him.  He hunted up another water bottle.  Maybe with enough water it would stay down.

 

Zudarra's stony expression did not change.  She wondered what that water tasted like to Saraven.  It had been about a year since she had turned, but she remembered the deeply satisfying taste of cold water after a workout, or the sensation of being full with a good meal and completely forgetting about food until the next time she was hungry.  These were things that she missed.

 

“How noble of you.”  The words weren't biting as usual, although she still did find his ceaseless need for heroics tiring.  “I want to know what's going on as well.  It'll be bad for my career if Cyrodiil is razed to the ground, although I guess there's nothing I can do to stop that if it happens.  Anyway, Anvil is the most likely place for any survivors to end up, and maybe some of them know what happened.  I have to go there anyway and check on my mother.  For all we know, every city was attacked last night, not just this one.”  She paused.  “No telling what's roaming the roads out there.  It would be safer to go together.”

 

“A mer needs a reason.”  He considered her, stoically munching the moldy bread from her pack.  He felt another surge of pity for the dead Altmer.  What a life he had led!  Perhaps he had not minded, lost in that hypnotic fog all his days right up until the moment of his death.  “And I agree.  Thank you for the food and water.”  He stood up, hooking another bottle of water, and offered her back the bag.  It was her gold, and vampires were territorial creatures.

 

Then the first part of her statement actually registered.  "You have a living mother?"

 

Zudarra stood and accepted the bag, slinging it over her shoulder and began the walk out of town.  She didn't bother to look back at Vandalion's final resting place.  He was just one corpse among many in an open graveyard full of bodies too burned or too mutilated to identify.  Sentimental people would come to bury the dead, she was sure.  He'd had no family, so it didn't matter if the Altmer's gravestone was marked with a name or not.  

 

“I was twenty-three when I turned, and that was a year ago,” Zudarra replied.  Normally she would be uncomfortable telling anyone she had family -- they might use that against her in some way -- but Saraven was not the kind of person to do a thing like that.  “Aren't you concerned about your people?” she asked absently.

 

She stopped to pilfer a greatsword and baldric from a slain dremora.  The edges of the heavy blade were jagged like teeth, bits of flesh still caught in them.  She pulled a cloth from her bag and cleaned it as they walked with the hilt under her armpit.  There was nothing she could do about the rain that slicked the alien metal.

 

“No,” he said. “Nothing can harm them now.”  So his impression from her assault on his mind had been correct.  She was incredibly young.  He watched her with a small lift to his chin, and then began looking for a corpse with a longsword.  He felt strength returning to his body.  Moldy bread wouldn't keep him going for long, but it was a start.  He gradually drained the second bottle as they walked, careful of his knotted stomach.  “How did it happen?”

 

A lot of diversions into rubble eventually turned up a dremora with an intact scabbard.  He unfastened the baldric and removed it to replace it on himself.  The blade, when he slid it out to look at it, was clean.  The creature had died without ever drawing it.  That made him go and look again.  It was hard to tell from a dremora's mottled complexion, but the marks on the temples might be electrical burns.  Interesting.  A quick check of the pockets in the armor's padding turned up another scroll of Silence, an unidentifiable potion, which he left be, and a pearl, which he pocketed.

 

The Chapel of Akatosh still stood, though the barricades around it were unmanned.  Saraven gazed up at the spire as they passed, but did not turn aside.   _ But we will have words again, the Divines and I. _

 

Zudarra didn't know what to say to that.  Either Saraven's family were cloistered inside an impenetrable fortress or they were all dead.  His complete disregard for his own life suddenly made more sense.

 

Zudarra didn't know what she would do when Mama died, but beyond the typical grieving period she didn't see how it would ultimately change her.  She would still want power and fame.  She would still want her life.

 

“It wasn't an accident,” she said, glad that he had changed the subject.  She wasn't about to fake sympathy she didn't have or ask how they died.  She was curious, but knew it was too rude of a question.  “I saved up my winnings from the arena and bought the most powerful staff of fire that I could, then I walked into a nest of feral vampires outside the Imperial City.  When I'd been bitten enough to ensure I was infected, I killed them all.  It took a while to find them.  Followed lots of rumors and false leads.”

 

As they moved toward the open city gates they could see the ruins of another gate into the Deadlands just beyond it, black spears of jagged rock jutting upward.  It looked smaller than the one that they had left.  City guards in their steel mail and wolf insignia were still manning the barricades behind it, but they had the weary air of men after a battle is ended; there was no real sense of vigilance, and no civilians in sight.

 

The stable just outside the wall looked like it had burned before the rain put it out.  The stable itself had been left open and every horse inside was missing, but a few still stood in the pasture.  Probably the people fleeing didn't have time to catch the animals that were loose in the pen and crazy with fear.

 

A guard approached them as they came near, an Imperial.  He seemed exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and slumped shoulders.

 

“I didn't think anyone was alive in there,” he said.  “How did you get out?”

 

Saraven didn't hear him, because he had stopped dead several yards back.  His face was completely blank, empty bottle dropping from his fingers to rattle on the cobblestones.  A parade of smug, mocking faces flashed in front of his eyes.

 

_ Soon you will be one of us. _

 

_ You know you've been down here a long time, hunter.  How long until you become the thing you hate? _

 

_ You will understand the thirst so much better three days from now.  You have not the slightest choice in the matter. _

 

He shook himself and moved forward after her.  It was anathema to him, it was horror and abomination, but he knew with certainty that she was not the first.

 

Zudarra looked back at Saraven when the bottle hit the ground, narrowing her eyes.  

 

_ This guy has a screw loose for sure.  _  He told her that he saw things back in the Deadlands, didn't he?  That was just her luck, to end up with a damaged thrall who might end up having flashbacks in the thick of battle.  She stared at him as he caught up and spoke to the guard.

 

“Sorry, I didn't hear that,” he said.  The man repeated himself dully.  “We were captured.  We were able to get out of the cage and fight our way back.  I'm Saraven Gol, Fighters Guild, and this is Zudarra the Bloody, Arena fighter.  What happened to this gate to the Deadlands?”

 

“It was closed by an Argonian fellow.  Half the city guard held the Kvatch gate while the other half followed him in.  Most of them.. didn't make it back.”  The man's voice caught in his throat and he looked away, gazing glassy-eyed at something very far away.

 

“Where did the Argonian go?” Zudarra asked.  His attention snapped back to her.

 

“I don't know.  South.  You say you came out from the other gate?  Is it open still?”

 

“No, we closed it.  I don't understand how, but...”  She waved a hand, unable to find the words to explain all they had seen and done.  “There doesn't seem to be any daedra left alive in the city, now.”

 

He nodded, but didn't seem glad at the news.  His friends and family were probably all dead.  There was really no city to guard any more, just a pile of rubble and ash.

 

“I'm sorry,” Saraven said.  “Do you know why this happened?”

 

The guard shook his head.  Someone behind him called his name - “Glarius!” - and he moved away to answer.  Saraven turned toward the fenced pasture.  It didn't seem likely that Ves had survived it all, but he had to check.  He stood at the fence and whistled.  The black horse came trotting up, whickering at him.  Saraven spoke to him in Dunmeris, patting his neck.  He thought about the carrots in Zudarra's bag.  Probably even Ves would refuse to eat those.  He went to check inside the stable building in case there was food, or anyone willing to sell him some.  The dremora had not bothered with his purse, and he still had a couple of septims.

 

It was dark inside, and his greeting returned no answer.  There were bales of hay stacked against one wall. A few bags of oats presumably intended for sale hung from nails.  Near the wall of hay was a stool and a little cupboard.  There was no one on duty.  They must have fled.  He looked in the cupboard and found a bar of saddle soap, a couple of brushes, and a canvas bag that must've been someone's lunch because there was a half-loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and two apples inside.  The saddles still hung on their stands inside a stall.  He shouldered his and took it out to the pasture to call to Ves again.  The black horse came up to him willingly enough.  He had heard enough noise for one day and was eager to be away.

 

At a glance Zudarra knew Shadow had survived, standing taller than most other horses in the pasture.  She followed Saraven inside for her tack and grabbed a bag of oats to lure Shadow with -- he wasn't very well behaved.  Zudarra kept him stabled most of the time and rarely rode.  She left some gold behind for the oats, knowing Saraven would probably complain if he saw her stealing.  

 

As if it mattered.  Whoever owned the place was probably dead.

 

The rain was beginning to let up, clouds drifting away from the moons as they set off down the road side by side, weaving their horses around the barricades.  The road zig-zagged sharply down the steep hill, and after the first bend they came to a crowd of survivors.  Zudarra could hear grown men and women wailing like small children before they were even close.  Some huddled beneath drenched blankets hung over tree limbs by the road, but most of them sat on the grass with their heads in their hands.  They had to slow their horses as they approached.  There were people in the road, wandering aimlessly or standing and staring at the ruined city on the hill.  A lot of them seemed completely oblivious to their surroundings.

 

It was intensely uncomfortable to watch.  Zudarra had never seen war before... but this must be what it was like.

 

Saraven sat hunched in the saddle as they rode through the refugees, looking to left and right, mouth folded down.  The sounds of weeping and wailing threatened him with more overwhelming images, but if it was not sudden he could fight it off.  His hand twitched on the bridle, causing Ves to snort inquiringly.  The Dunmer made a soothing noise under his breath.

 

He could not help them.  His pitiful few coins would not buy them new homes or bring back their dead family and friends.  It ground at him like sandpaper, but he rode on, slowly enough to let the wanderers get out of the way.  A few people stared at them as they passed, attention drawn by the strange sight of a Dunmer in mithral and the largest Khajiit many would ever have seen; but they both carried dremora weapons, and no one dared say anything.

 

Presently they were through the camp and on their way down the hill, and Saraven let out a breath he had not realized he was holding.  He did not know when he had last slept, and it would be a long ride to Anvil even with the rain gradually abating.  A last few drops ran down the back of his neck, cold against his flesh.

 

In fact, he made it about ten miles before he fell off the horse.  At the bottom of the hill the road wound off through rolling hills, tall grass, scattered flowers.  The terrain here had not been harmed by the attack, still green and lovely under the moon.  He was aware of the dull rhythm of Ves's stride, out of synchronization with Zudarra's enormous horse because of his shorter legs, and it gradually lulled him, reigns sliding through his hands.  He did not notice that he was falling or know when he landed in the tall grass beside the road.

 

Ves snorted and pranced in place as he was suddenly deprived of weight.

 

Zudarra looked over her shoulder at the sudden thud and pulled back on the reigns, rolling her eyes when she saw what had happened.  Shadow turned sharply to circle around her fallen companion.

 

It had been a long time since Zudarra  _ needed  _ to sleep.  She still did it because it was pleasant and gave her something to do during the day, but she never felt foggy-brained from going without.  Exhaustion was an infirmity of mortal life that she didn't miss at all and another thing that had annoyed her about Vandalion when they traveled.

 

She stared down at the Dunmer for several long moments, saddle creaking as Shadow pawed the road, and wondered what to do with him.  Throw him over his horse and keep going?  They would make better time that way.  She didn't want to waste valuable moonlight just sitting around.  But if they encountered more dremora, he wouldn't be much use if he was really tired enough to fall from his horse. 

 

With an annoyed groan Zudarra slid to the ground.  She tied Shadow and Ves to separate trees at the side of the road, giving them enough free reign to drop their heads and eat.  She unrolled the bed attached to Saraven's saddle and dragged him onto it.  Then she stared down at him, again wondering what to do.  Should she take off his armor?

 

No, she wasn't undressing him.  If he was so tired he should have said something and asked to stop.  If he woke up with a sore back from sleeping in mithral, that was his problem.

 

Like it or not, it seemed that Zudarra was stranded roadside for the night.  She started undoing the clasps of her armor and putting the pieces away in her saddle bag, which she pulled form Shadow's back; she wasn't going to sit around in that all night.  It felt good to get the heavy steel off her body, especially the cuirass.  Rain had trickled down her neck and soaked her underclothes.  Now they could get some air.  

 

She sat down beside Saraven's sleeping form, leaning back on her palms and stretching her unencumbered legs out in front of her.  She felt so light.  The new daedric sword lay beside her in its scabbard by her hand.  The horse's teeth squeaked against wet grass behind them and the trees rustled in the warm breeze.  It was such a beautiful night.  Zudarra couldn't believe that hours ago she'd been in hell, so sure she would never see this world again.

 

A pulsing thud reached her ears and she looked down to watch Saraven's breast rise and fall with every breath.  In the Deadlands she hadn't noticed it so much in the air clouded with death and blood -- blood far superior to his -- but now she was noticing his scent again.  Her nostrils widened as her nose twitched.  Her mouth fell open, tongue running over her fangs.  She shouldn't be hungry; she had fed multiple times that very day, and fed well.

 

But she could  _ hear _ the blood that pulsed through his body and she could  _ smell _ something not quite of this world, a seductive perfume that just wouldn't get out of her head.  The thirst roiled within her and she knew it would be impossible to sit there peacefully and ignore it.

 

Zudarra leaned over Saraven, bracing herself with a hand near his head and using the fingers of her other hand to press his cheek, turning his head gently to the side.  She could feel his warm pulse under her finger pads as she touched him, which inflamed her desire all the more.  She may as well have been starving for days for the level of hunger that suddenly clawed at her belly.

 

_ He doesn't have to know.  He won't wake up, _ she told herself, lowering her mouth to his exposed neck.

 

He was tired, so very tired.  Someone was touching his throat, lips, teeth.  That wasn't right.  He hadn't actually  _ slept _ with another person in decades now.  It didn't matter, the gorget would protect him.  

 

“The gorget is gone,” said the Argonian child, flames crackling from her back and head.  She grinned at him, showing all her sharp teeth.  

 

Saraven's eyes snapped open on something curved and yellow-white in the dark, pulse jumping.  The curve of one breast in woolen under-armor padding filled half his vision as the Khajiit bent over him, and then he felt her fangs indent the skin of his throat.  His sigh could be felt but was not audible.  

 

_ I must have fallen asleep in the saddle. _  There was something softer than the ground under him, so she had taken the time to haul out his bedroll.  He felt no pain from head injury.  She had not ambushed him or taken him by surprise.  She was merely taking advantage of the opportunity.

 

After all that had happened, all that they had fought through side by side, she still would feed on him.  He felt an overwhelming fatigue at the realization, and in that moment he slowly shut his eyes again.  The sensation of fangs piercing his throat was painful, but he lacked the energy to fight it.  She felt his heart slow down again.

 

“Why do you want me that badly?” he asked, voice weak.

 

_ He's awake.  _  She couldn't stop now, even if she wanted to.  And Zudarra didn't want to stop.  

 

Fangs punctured flesh and lifted.  Her mouth covered the holes and she eagerly sucked.  The hot blood on her tongue was more wonderful than she had imagined, a taste so overwhelmingly strong and full.  It was not comparable to the blood of daedra; it strengthened her, but not with that intoxicating level of power.  Still, it was sublime.  All blood was, and especially his.  She groaned against his neck in response to his question.

 

_ I always want this.  How could I not? _

 

He was already weak from the events of the previous day.  Saraven needed his strength and she did not.  Zudarra knew all of this, but it took all of her willpower to finally pull herself off him.  She gasped as her mouth broke away, trembling in pleasure.  She raised a hand to heal him and the punctures closed, leaving behind two tiny drops of blood that rolled down his neck.  She impassively searched his face for a reaction as she pulled away, curious but not disturbed that she'd been caught.

 

She fed him when he needed it most.  It was only fair that he return the favor.  He ought to be thankful that a taste was all she took, when she could have so much more from him.

 

It hurt, the fundamental wrongness of flesh being pierced and the worse feeling of suction against his new wounds.  She groaned in response to his question, as if helpless with lust.  He felt his strength drain with his blood.  In seconds he had sunk past the point of not wishing to resist, to the point of not being able.  Was this why she had given him water, that he might survive to feed her?

 

Of course it was.  He opened his eyes and sought hers as she healed him, his face slack with resignation, perfect despair.  He could not even be angry at the betrayal when she had not attempted to violate his mind.  It was in her fundamental nature, irrevocable and irresistible.  He felt the world growing vague around him, and it came as a great relief.  Nothing seemed more desirable at this moment than darkness and silence.

 

Zudarra was puzzled by the dead-eyed expression that greeted her.  He didn't fight back or complain, he just... accepted the violation.  Zudarra frowned, ears flicking to the sides as she scooted aside to give him space.  Maybe he was too tired to properly react.  He seemed to be falling asleep again.

 

She laced her fingers behind her head and fell back on the ground to watch the stars, sighing in deep satisfaction.  She could appreciate Saraven's pleasant scent now that her thirst was slaked.  She was warm and comfortable and the presence of a beating mortal heart nearby was just downright cozy.

 

Such an odd man, who didn't seem to care one way or the other what happened to him.  He spoke as if he hated vampires, but here he was allowing her to feed and she hadn't even forced him!  Zudarra grinned up at the stars, happy for her luck at finding him.  At this rate he might become a willing thrall.  

 

The sudden memory of his words echoed through her mind.

 

_ I started seeing things.  Things that I remember.  Dead vampires.  Dead victims of vampires.  My – people I knew. _

 

_ Nothing can harm them now. _

 

Her smile faded, and something ugly and uncomfortable bubbled up in her chest.  His family had been killed by vampires.  That was the source of his single-minded hatred.  That's why he had no will to live.  Zudarra was all too aware of which emotions now squeezed her heart with icy fingers.

 

_ Guilt. _

 

_ Shame. _

 

She grimaced, swallowing hard, and jerked her head so she was looking away from him.  He was fine!  She didn't hurt him!  She didn't kill his stupid family, and she never would do such a thing!  A quick drink was different from murder.

 

_ I'm not like them.  I could be if I wanted to -- I'm powerful enough.  But I choose not to be.  I'm not a mindless animal. _

 

It was too much.  Her thoughts were racing too fast.  Zudarra jerked upright and to her feet and raced down the road.  She needed to burn off energy.  A quick jog would help with that, but she wouldn't leave Saraven alone.  The road was straight and level here and she would keep him in her sights.

 

After her run, Zudarra occupied herself with her daily calisthenics, across the road from Saraven so as not to disturb him.  She tried not to think.  The sun was already rising by then, and for once in her unlife it brought not the slightest discomfort.  Zudarra had a feeling that would change as her vigor from the dremora's blood faded, but she would enjoy it while it lasted.

 

Saraven was not sure how long he slept.  He dreamt not at all, sunk completely by exhaustion and blood loss.  The bright sun on his face woke him at last, piercing his eyelids.  He turned away from the light, but the effort of moving in his armor forced him into wakefulness.  He sat up slowly.  The two horses were tied not far off, peaceably cropping the grass.  He felt weaker than he should, even a few hours' sleep should have him up and ready to fight for his life unless he had been bitten.

 

He had been bitten.  His mind kept throwing up memories and images of every time it had happened, and he sorted through them with difficulty to find the one that mattered.  He rested his elbow on one upraised knee, his forehead on his hand.  There was something important, something he had forgotten to do.

 

_ Zudarra.  It was Zudarra, and I did not cure myself. _  He clenched his left fist, and green magicka flared  up in a spiral around his torso, the light sinking in and vanishing.  That moment of adrenaline finally cleared his head.

 

He was still alive.  He'd have to get up and go on.  That did not feel possible or interesting in the slightest, but it had to be done.  He couldn't just stop.  That would be letting them win.  And what if there was still some chance, however small, that he could save someone else's spouse, someone else's child?  Saraven got up slowly, shook out the bedroll, and took it to attach it to the saddle before he put the saddle back onto his horse.  

 

Movement made him glance around belatedly.  Zudarra was across the road, doing exercises in the bright sun.  He spared her a disinterested glance as he hunted up the sack with the better food in it.  The taste of an apple revived him a little.  It was a little wrinkly, but at least it wasn't moldy bread.

 

Zudarra finished her stretch when she saw that Saraven was almost finished with breakfast and padded across the road to saddle and untie her own horse, and pick up her sword.  She thought that after leaving him alone for hours her conflicting emotions would have vanished.  For the most part they had, but there was still a nagging sense of having done wrong in the back of her mind.  

 

Maybe he didn't remember.  Maybe he wouldn't notice.

 

_ Of course he notices.  You don't just lose a couple pints of blood and not notice it. _

 

She'd been planning to ask Saraven to help her into her armor, but now she felt too awkward to ask such a favor.  She missed Vandalion.  She had taken him for granted, always annoyed with his weakness and never appreciating how easy he made life for her.

 

“Ready to go?” she asked curtly, hand on her saddle horn, ready to pull herself onto Shadow's back.  Her eyes did not seek his.

 

“You're out of armor,” he said, tossing aside the apple core.  “Get your greaves on and I'll do your vambraces.”  He had helped guildmates into and out of heavy armor.  It was nothing new.  And if he was resigned to continuing to live for the present, he didn't want to die stupidly because she was unprotected as well as arrogant when they ran into another gate.

 

Zudarra nodded, feeling a little funny inside.  It was a twisty-curly emotion she didn't have a name for, and it annoyed her greatly.  She started to pull the armor from her saddle bag.  When her greaves were tightly laced she held the cuirass against her chest for him to tighten, kneeling so he could easily reach.

 

It was uncomfortable being so close to him.  She wasn't even close to being ravenous, but of course she could never turn down a drink.  She wanted him.  She wanted every last drop of blood in his body.  An image of his pale, desiccated corpse flashed in her mind.  Zudarra didn't want him dead, but it would have felt so good to feel him die in her arms, knowing that every last bit of strength was now hers..  Her pulse quickened; she inhaled sharply at the imagined sensation.

 

She forced that thought away, but the heavy awkwardness of what they both knew hung unspoken between them.  She stood and faced him, arms outstretched for her vambraces and pauldrons, stealing a quick glance at his eyes.

 

He tightened the cuirass as she knelt there.  If he'd had his dagger he could kill her right now, one quick blow to the eye or the temple.  Would he be able to even try, he wondered?  He felt heavy and divided.  In his mind he saw clearly what he wished her to be and what he knew that she was, and even though one was not real he could not completely let it go, or he felt that his mind would break.  He listened to her breathe in.  

 

_ The thirst is never blunted.  Never. _

 

He set about armoring her shoulders and arms, face still relaxed as he concentrated on his task.  His movements were unhurried and certain.  Only an odd little twitch in his left hand betrayed anything wrong.  His eyes only partly saw what was in front of him, red and dark and distant.

 

_ She won't be able to stop herself.  Last night I was willing to end thus.  Am I ready to choose that in the cold light of day?   _

 

_ No.  If I had died in the Deadlands, closing the gate, it might have meant something.  It won't mean anything to her. _

 

He ran over the problem in his mind as he worked.  He would have to supply the deficiencies in his armor.  He would wake up if she tried to remove a solid gorget, and he knew that she could survive one fire spell if he had to use it.  He felt no pleasure in the thought of any of it.  The entire situation felt bizarre, awful, and his mind stuttered and danced around the problem like a water strider around a stone in the current.

 

Zudarra flexed her arms and then her legs, testing her mobility and the fit of the armor.  Everything was good.  Her baldric was draped from the saddle horn; she lifted it over her head and pulled herself up.  Shadow shifted under the sudden heaviness that plopped onto his back.

 

“...Thanks,” Zudarra said belatedly, without a hint of actual gratitude, remembering that's what you were supposed to say when someone helped you.  She never even thought of thanking Vandalion.  She rarely thanked free people in general, but it might be beneficial to be a little friendly to Saraven after what had happened.

 

She thought of telling Saraven about his inexplicable quality that drew her like a moth to a flame.  Perhaps he didn't know about that, or maybe he did and he could explain what it was.  But the moment for explanations had passed, and she didn't want to seem like she was making excuses for herself or apologizing.  She wasn't sorry.  

 

Saraven was startled into a brief laugh in response as he mounted up.  She hadn't thanked him for his blood.  But then, that had not been a free exchange of any kind.  It had been ravishment, and they both knew it.  Perhaps there were people alive who would feed a thirsty vampire voluntarily, but there were no vampires that would ask before they took.  Nothing in his experience argued with that conclusion.  She had never given him any reason to assume she was different, and he was the fool for wishing it to be that way.  A rush of anger and loathing burned in his gut, but it was feeling something, it was life.  It was better than nothing.

 

The gelding made a low, complaining noise at the change in his rider's scent.  Saraven murmured to him in Dunmeris as he steered him out to the road.  

 

Zudarra turned Shadow West towards Anvil and started down the road at a brisk canter, the sun on her back to warm her glinting armor.

 

It was a long day's ride to Anvil.  Saraven pulled off to eat again when they passed a wild apple tree, filling his canvas bag with hard, tart little green fruits.  It would be uncomfortable to live on for very long, but it would stop him keeling over again.  He ate as he rode and drank when they passed a brook.  Each time Zudarra would know his plans when he clucked his tongue at Ves to stop him.  Otherwise he did not attempt to speak to her.

 

The gray stone walls of Anvil loomed up ahead in the late afternoon.  They topped a small rise and there it was, the Southern sea gleaming endless beyond.  The masts of ships looked like twigs from so far out, the waterfront a sprawling forest of them.  The road wound down the hill and out of sight past what looked like an inn, and then reappeared in the distance as it approached the city's main gate.

 

Zudarra breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the city untouched.  She couldn't fathom why daedra would want to destroy Anvil, but then, she couldn't understand why Kvatch, either.  With Mehrunes Dagon commanding the daedric army, there was probably no tactical reasoning behind Kvatch as a target.  He would destroy for the sake of destruction.

 

They rode through rolling golden hills, the cool coastal breeze smelling of sea salt and wild flowers.  The sea sparkled in the sunlight beyond the town, slowly disappearing from view as they came down the slope and the walls rose on the horizon instead.  Shadow's hide glistened with sweat when they stopped to stable the horses outside the main gate, where two human guards stood watch.

 

“Have you come from Kvatch?” one of them asked as they approached, looking from the daedric weapons carried by the newcomers and then back to their faces.

 

“Yes, and no daedra are left alive in the city,” Zudarra answered, anticipating his next question.  She straightened her spine, chin held high and jerked a thumb at herself.  “I am Zudarra the Bloody, and I have closed the great gate to the Deadlands that destroyed Kvatch and threatened all of Cyrodiil!”

 

The guards looked from Zudarra to Saraven in astonishment, but considering they both carried daedric swords, it seemed believable.

 

Saraven stared at her in mute disbelief for a second.  Then he turned to the guards and said, 

 

“Do you know if any other cities were attacked?”  Both men shook their heads.

 

“Everything's overturned since the Emperor's assassination -”

 

The Dunmer stared at him.  The man looked from him to Zudarra and back.  “What?  You didn't hear about the assassination?  Right under the noses of the Imperial guards, too, they're saying it was some kind of cultists.”

 

“Daedric cultists?” Saraven asked carefully.

 

“Not that I know of, but the details are still very sketchy,” said the second guard.

 

“So who's ruling the Imperium?” Saraven asked.

 

“It'll be Chancellor Ocato, I guess.  The princes of the blood were assassinated at almost the same time.”

 

“No one bearing the Blood of St. Alessia remains?” Saraven asked.

 

“I don't think so.  I mean if you believe in all that, no offense,” the guard said.

 

“I see.  Thank you for your time, officers.”  They were waved on, the bemused city guards staring after them.

 

“I need to see Morvayn, and he's close to the gate,” he said to Zudarra, reluctantly breaking the day's silence.  “Where's your mother live?”

 

“Western end of town,” Zudarra replied.  “Isn't Morvayn the smith?  What's the matter, a sword forged in the fires of Oblivion isn't good enough for you?”  

 

“I need a new gorget and bracers,” Saraven said.  “Can't afford one yet, but I might be able to do something for him in exchange.  I have before.”  He moved toward a solid, prosperous-looking building ahead of them with the universal symbol for a smithy hanging from its sign, a sword and mace crossed over a shield.  Above it were carved the words Morvayn's Peacemakers.  The shop was built of heavy, roughly square bricks, with pillars supporting a short, pointed portico roof above the porch.

 

“Hm.  I suppose I'll go with you,” she said, following him into the shop.  It was easier than meeting up later, and she didn't want to risk having Saraven split on her.  There was really no reason for them to stay together anymore.  The road had been safe, Anvil was safe.  “After that... you could eat at my mother's, you know.  She's very friendly, and you need to eat something other than apples.”

 

_ Have to be strong if you're to be of any use to me _ were the words she did not speak.  Her offer was most  _ definitely _ not born of guilt for weakening him.

 

“Thank you.  That is a generous offer,” he said grimly.  What in the world was behind this?

 

Saraven pushed open a heavy hollow-core door of verdigrised bronze and entered a warm, dim interior.  A sturdy, muscular Dunmer with a gray-brown tan stood behind a counter, polishing a silver shortsword with a piece of rawhide.  He had no hair on the top of his head and had grown out the sides to tie back into a short tail in the back.  Hammering could be heard in the room behind him off to the right.  The space behind the counter was mostly shelving, piled with armor and weapons.

 

Varel Morvayn glanced up, then laid the shortsword aside as he rested callused hands on the counter.  Saraven watched him hunt for the name, squinting, then glance at the Cathay-raht behind him and back.  His eyes dwelt on their weapons for a good couple of seconds.

 

“Saraven Gol,” Morvayn said at last.  He had the accent of a Dunmer raised speaking Cyrodilic, much more lilting and less harsh.  “It's been some time.  What can I do for you?”

 

“I need another gorget and bracers,” he said.  “This is Zudarra the Bloody, who closed the second Kvatch gate.”

 

“Charmed, I'm sure.  Are you still broke?” Morvayn asked dryly.  Saraven nodded.  

 

“You could trade me that sword for them.  I don't see many of those through here.”

 

“I could, but then I would have no sword,” said Saraven.  Morvayn smiled slightly.  His next question was in Dunmeris as he glanced back at Zudarra.

 

“Are you keeping up with the cures?  You're looking paler since I saw you last.”

 

“Always,” Saraven replied in the same tongue.  “I'm not asking for anything for free.  I will work for it.”

 

Zudarra crossed her arms over her chest, listening to their conversation with increasing irritation.  Her tail jittered and curled against the back of her calves.  They were talking about her, right in front of her!  Did they think she was stupid?

 

“All right,” Morvayn said, switching back to Cyrodilic.  “I haven't forgotten what happened three years ago.  But the things I need done aren't necessarily work for a warrior.  Probably.  Maybe the one with the silver.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“I'm expecting a small casque of ebony for a commissioned dagger in from a ship called the Vala Jan,” said Morvayn. “All the way from the mines at Solstheim.  It's here in port, but they haven't sent a runner these five days.  I need someone to go see what's happened.  If you can get the ebony and haul it back here I'll have your gorget and bracers made by the time you can get back.”

 

“Thank you, Morvayn.  I am in your debt.”  Saraven turned for the door.

 

“What was that all about?” Zudarra huffed, letting the door bang shut behind her as they left.  “And by the way, I never claimed that I closed the gate by myself.  Nothing was stopping you from saying you were there, too.”  She overtook Saraven to lead the way towards the Western end of town.

 

“I don't care if anyone knows who I am.  Easier for me if they don't,” he said, turning to keep up with her.  “Morvayn knows what I do.  He asked if I was keeping up with the cures.  I said yes, and I wasn't asking for anything for free, and the rest you heard.”  He did not lay out for her the implied question whether he had finally been made a prisoner or a thrall, and should Morvayn reach for the Truncheon of Submission behind the counter?

 

Which was a kind thing to offer, Morvayn was a good man; but Zudarra would easily have killed him.  He might be able to easily fight off the odd attempted robbery, not an arena fighter with the abilities of a vampire.

 

Zudarra's anger dissipated.  It was quite reasonable for a man to be concerned if he saw his acquaintance with a vampire, she supposed.  It seemed that Saraven had been mocking her, but now she felt silly for thinking so.  Saraven seemed incapable of humor to begin with.

 

“Here,” she said after finishing the walk in silence, nodding to their right.

 

Her mother's home was a tiny and narrow two storied house of white limestone brick and terracotta-shingle roof, situated in a cul-de-sac near the Southwestern gate.  It overlooked a little grassy plaza in the center of the ring of homes, thickly clustered with lilac and rose bushes.  Nearly every building in the city was made from stone and plaster, lacking nearby forests for timber.  It eased Zudarra's mind that at least Anvil wouldn't burn as easily as Kvatch if there was an attack.

 

Zudarra rapped on the door, ancient wood painted aqua blue and badly chipped.  The rest of the house was just beginning to fall into disrepair.  Some of the shingles had fallen off and cracks spidered across the foundation, but there were other homes in the neighborhood in far worse condition.  

 

“By the way,” Zudarra said offhandedly.  “My mother doesn't know about my  _ condition _ , and if you tell her, I'll kill you.”  She pushed the door open without waiting for a response, either from the Dunmer or from within the home.  

 

“Ma, it's Zudarra,” she announced loudly as she entered.  “And I'm with a... friend.”

 

The door opened into a very narrow hallway with a stair leading up.  Zudarra's pauldrons scraped against either wall, so she had to turn her body and edge in sideways.  A square frame on their left lead to the single downstairs room.  Zudarra had to duck her head to enter.  She left the door for Saraven to close, as it would be impossible for him to maneuver around her.

 

The room they entered was cluttered but tidy, without a speck of dust to be seen anywhere.  A small table with four pushed-in chairs sat directly in front of the entryway, adorned with white crocheted placemats and an empty glass vase.  Daylight flooded the home from two huge windows that overlooked the street and the neighboring alley.  Cabinets full of spotless porcelain dishes and shelves crammed with random junk lined every wall.  Glass bottles, sea shells, household tools, a basket of yarn, books, candles, fresh vegetables, and countless other items were tightly packed on every surface.  Zudarra moved slowly in the tiny room, made even smaller with clutter, for fear her armor would knock something over.

 

Just beyond the windows and the sitting area was the hearth.  Iron pots on tall legs stood in the ashes of an earlier fire, bellows and tongs and other tools laying on the little brick wall that bordered the cooking area.  A short pantry cabinet stood against the back wall.

 

Across from the hearth sat an Imperial woman who looked to be in her mid fifties, on a wooden bench lined with sunny yellow cushions.  A patchwork quilt was thrown over the back of it, and a side table next to her held a little pale blue kettle and matching teacup.  A steel shortsword was mounted on the wall over her head on a plaque, a red wooden shield beside it.  The paint was heavily chipped and full of deep gouges, but the emblem of a black serpent twisted into a knot was still visible.

 

The woman stood as they entered.  A purple shawl fringed with tassels hung from her shoulders.  The long-sleeved tunic and skirt beneath it were both a pale red embroidered with a darker floral design.  Her thinning silver hair was pulled back in a bun, several stray wisps hanging down around her round face.  Her tanned skin bore the creases of one who smiled often.

 

She beamed when she saw them and came forward with arms thrown open wide to embrace the armored Khajiit in a hug.

 

“I'm so glad to see you!” she exclaimed happily, pressing her cheek against Zudarra's breastplate and squeezing.  Zudarra smiled back and patted her shoulders.  The woman pulled back and looked up at the tall Cathay-raht's face with foggy hazel eyes, then behind her at Saraven.  She leaned forward, still hanging onto Zudarra's arm.  “And who is this?  I'm sorry young man, but I can't see very well.  Come here!”

 

“Saraven Gol, and this is my mother, Lavinia,” Zudarra said, apparently uninterested in explaining why she had a human mother.  It was obvious that there was no blood relation.

 

“Good afternoon, Ma'am.”  Saraven bowed deeply and moved forward.  “I'm afraid I'm not very young.”  So Zudarra had been adopted by an Imperial.  He supposed that explained why her accent was better even than most Cyrodiil-born Khajiit.  He was not surprised by her threats.  Of course she would not tell an elderly parent she had become a blood-drinking revenant.  Anyone might wish to spare their loved ones that knowledge if they could.  He was not sure how to explain it if she were to lay a hand on his throat with his layered scars – he had been bitten an astonishing amount of times.  Life in the Guild was hard these days, he supposed?

 

“Well, age is only a number,” Lavinia said cheerfully.  “I'm just happy my Zudarra finally found someone.  She's a very lonely gi-”

 

“MOTHER.”  Zudarra's ears flattened against her head.  Her tone was annoyed, but not abrasive as it could be when speaking to others.  “It's not like that at all.  Actually, this isn't a friendly visit.  Kvatch has been attacked by the daedric army of Mehrunes Dagon.  I was there when it happened.  I only came to see if you were all right.”

 

Saraven squinted in silent discomfort.  The idea that he would be romantically involved with Zudarra was farcical and horrifying.  He could imagine a number of scenarios that were both safer and likely to provide more enjoyment, including persuading a mud crab to give him a handjob or receiving sodomy from an ice atronach.

 

Lavinia's smile faded quickly, mouth dropping open in shock.  She clutched at the shawl around her neck, blinking rapidly.

 

“Come to the table,” Zudarra said gently, laying a hand on her mother's back.  She guided the woman forward and pulled out a chair.  Lavinia sat, staring forward numbly.

 

“How?” she asked.

 

Zudarra looked up at Saraven.  

 

“We don't know.  But the Emperor and his sons have been assassinated.  It must be related.  I only just met Saraven while all of this was happening.  We escaped Kvatch together.”

 

“I'm sorry we were the first to tell you, Ma'am,” he said.  “Zudarra fought valiantly, if that is a comfort to you.”  This, at least, was absolutely true.  For all her arrogance and selfishness, she was a vicious fighter.

 

“Oh, is that so?” Lavinia said, raising a brow.  She looked up at Zudarra and smiled proudly.  She loved Zudarra, but even she knew it was unlikely the Khajiit had done anything selfless.

 

“We'll tell the story, but first, would you feed Saraven?  We've been traveling since the attack last night..”

 

“Oh, of course!  How rude of me that I didn't offer.”  Lavinia jumped up, grabbing two plates from a cabinet.

 

“Nothing for me, Ma, but I would take something with me.  You can sit down, Saraven,” Zudarra said, pulling out a chair for herself.  She lowered herself down awkwardly, spine straight and legs splayed in front of her.  It wasn't very comfortable, but she felt too large standing up in the small room.

 

“Nonsense, you should eat,” Lavinia said, digging through the pantry.  She brought back salted fish, sliced tomatoes, bread, and cheese, laying plates in front of both of them.

 

“Thank you, Ma'am, you're very kind,” he said.  He pulled out a chair and sat down carefully.  If the chairs were strong enough to support Zudarra in steel they would hold his weight in mithral easily.  He ate with decent manners, but quickly.  It had been short rations for a few days and he was starving.  When he felt Lavinia was not looking closely he stealthily reached over to hook Zudarra's fish.  If that worked he would take all of it bit by bit.  He was completely capable of eating two meals right now, and it was a shame to see good food go to waste.

 

Zudarra watched Saraven for a moment as he ate, almost wistfully.  Then she looked away, and began telling her mother all that had happened.  She made it out that they met for the first time in the cages of the torture room and ended with their awakening on the other side of the gate.  Lavinia listened with concern and awe, nodding happily every time a daedra in the story was slain.

 

“I'm so proud of you, dear,” she said, patting Zudarra's arm that lay across the table, helping to obscure her plate.  “And Sir Gol, thank you for bringing my daughter home to me.  You are a very brave man.”  Lavinia stood, leaning forward on the table to look at their empty plates.  She had not noticed Saraven's pilfering, absorbed in the story of their survival.

 

“She brought herself home,” he said dryly.  “The fact I was there was more of a coincidence.”

 

“You two must have been famished.  Would you like more?”

 

Zudarra was about to nix that idea when a boom rocked the house, followed by a long trembling of the world beneath their feet.  Zudarra caught her mother with one arm as she pitched forward, her chair smacking against a cabinet as she quickly stood.  Plates clattered and tools thudded as they shook themselves free of the shelves.  The room suddenly darkened; Zudarra's head snapped towards the window.  Black clouds, just like Kvatch.

 

“No, Ma'am, thank -”

 

Saraven shot to his feet as the ground began to shake, chair rattling across the floor on its back behind him.  Zudarra had managed to stop Lavinia falling.  He turned and ran to the front door, throwing it open to look out.  Black clouds were gathering overhead, the sky deepening from gray to blood-red behind them.  Staring intently at the swirl of movement, hands braced in the doorway against the rumbling underfoot, he thought he could tell where the center was.

 

“Another gate is about to open,” he said, turning back to the tiny room as bric-a-brac rained from the shelves.  A glass vase smashed on the floor, scattering stalks of young aloe vera.  “And I think it's about to open in front of the city gate.  In five minutes there will be daedra in the streets.  Does this house have a root cellar, Ma'am?”

 

The waterfront was probably the safest place, but their odds of reaching it with Lavinia before they were overtaken by roaming clannfear and scamps seemed poor.

 

Lavinia pushed away from Zudarra, keeping herself upright with a hand on the back of her chair as the house shook.

 

“Yes, it's out back, but I should get my sword-”

 

“No, Ma!” Zudarra snapped.  “You'll go to the cellar and lock the door.  Now!”  She grabbed her mother by the shoulders, pushing toward the door.  Lavinia huffed in offense as she was jostled out of her own kitchen.

 

“But I have to defend my home,” she insisted.

 

“You're blind as a bat.  You'd be dead in a minute.”  Zudarra waved Saraven out of the way and pushed  Lavinia out the door, who seemed to accept that her daughter was right.  Around back in the narrow space between the house and the city wall a single door angled down into the earth, weathered and full of wide cracks between the planks.  Zudarra yanked it open and watched impatiently as Lavinia carefully crept down the dark stairs.

 

“There's no light,” she complained.

 

“Don't make a sound and I'll come for you later,” Zudarra said, letting the door drop when her mother's head had cleared the entrance.  A wooden firewood rack full of split logs was leaning against the house.  Zudarra dragged it aside and shoved, letting it topple against the cellar door.  Her mother's muffled yelp issued from inside, but she ignored it.

 

“Do you mean to close the gate?” she asked, looking to Saraven.  “There's going to be an entire army waiting to walk through the second it opens.”

 

Saraven watched them, nodding in firm agreement as the logs fell.  Smoke would rise upward if the house was burned.  The daedra had not hunted carefully house to house in Kvatch, they had done as much damage as they could in the shortest amount of time.  Lavinia was as safe as they could make her.

 

“I can't fight an army,” he said.  He looked around for the house's water pump and dropped to one knee to yank on the handle, then held his face under it, drinking as much as he could stand.  In between drinking and pumping he spoke.  “That's how I got captured the first time.  But I can wait out the first wave and get in the gate before the second one.  The tower we were in was almost empty.  If I move fast, maybe I can get to the top before they get me.”  It seemed a strategy likely to result in him being filled with daedric arrows a few steps through the gate, but he felt surprisingly optimistic about his chances.  A full belly and half a night's sleep was something to go on, and now he had a weapon.  

 

Saraven stood up and wiped his mouth, water soaking his padding around the neck.  Then he turned toward the street, drawing his longsword.  It emerged from the sheath with a metallic shing, unsilked and unpadded, the toothed blade gleaming black and red and wicked in the increasingly dim light.

 

Zudarra paused, looking between the blocked cellar and Saraven's back as he walked away.

 

_ What am I going to do? _  She growled, realizing there were no options.  Anvil wasn't any better equipped to deal with an invasion than Kvatch was.  The city would fall if no one did anything.  Her chances of survival were just as poor out here as they were inside.  And her mother... even hidden in the cellar, she would be found and killed eventually if the dremora were not stopped.

 

She had caught up with Saraven in an instant, armor clanking as she slowed to match his pace.

 

“I'm going with you,” she said.

 

People were emerging from their houses now, alarmed by the rumbling ground and staring in awe at the mass of black clouds that swirled below a strange red sky.  Many of them had heard the news of Kvatch and were visibly terrified.  Some people ran past them toward the waterfront.

 

Saraven showed his teeth, a death's-head grin.  “I wondered if you might,” he said.  He raised his voice as he moved toward the gates of Anvil, which the guards were even now hurrying to close.  Beyond them, black spikes were completing their journey up out of the earth, the cause of the shaking.  They formed a spiny arc that came together at the top without a seam even as he watched.

 

“Let us out.  Then seal the gate and then get the hell away.  Get everyone to the castle and the waterfront, if you can.”

 

“Who the hells are you?” demanded one, turning to stare at them.

 

“One who survived Kvatch.  The gates won't stop them for five minutes if they've brought the siege weapon that they used there.”  He slid between the closing gates without pause.  In front of him the gate roared like a bonfire as flames appeared from its edges, snapping in to form the crimson membrane.  Saraven ran for one edge, prepared to stand behind the spiny edge of the thing until the first wave of daedra had passed through.

 

Zudarra followed and pressed herself against the black spine, although she was too bulky for it to completely conceal her.  It was warm to the touch, like recently cooled lava.  She glared sideways at Saraven, yanking her own sword from its scabbard.  She wanted to close the gate, but this was starting to look like a suicide mission.

 

The humming of the fiery portal grew louder as black shapes emerged from the other side.  Dremora ran through in pairs, heavy daedric boots chinking as they moved.  A few archers had assembled on the wall, but not nearly enough to call themselves an army.  They were just the guards who happened to be on duty that day.  Zudarra hoped that someone had the brains to retreat to the castle, where maybe a force could be rallied to hold it.

 

The stream of demons didn't stop.  The warriors came through first, and then lines of mages who wasted no time in flinging volleys of fire at the Anvil gate.  Arrows splintered ineffectively on the black-armored warriors who formed a protective barrier in front of the mages.  At least fifty dremora had emerged, all of them running forward to make way for the next, when the high pitched whine of the portal ebbed to its usual drone.  The city gate was a wall of flame now, to match the portal that lay in front of it.  

 

Zudarra looked at Saraven.  It was time to go.

 

He jerked his head once, a short nod, and spun around the stone rim and stepped into the membrane.  

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

The world went red.  There was a sensation of incredibly rapidly movement that lasted a long second, and then Saraven was staggering forward onto cracked and stony ground under a fiery sky.  The earth sloped down from the gate to a sea of lava, a broad staging ground where two ranks of dremora still waited, warriors and mages.  Clannfear and scamps were already pawing and screeching in front of them, ready to run in through the gate.  Across a levy of slick stone rose a pair of half-broken gates, lying open, and beyond the levy broadened into a bridge large enough to admit a small army.  A black tower climbed to the sky at the end of the bridge, its parapets black and cruelly sharp, a spire of yellow flame rising from the summit into the sky.

 

Saraven turned and sprinted for a rock formation near them, hardly more than a pile of rough stone covered in peculiar crimson grass.  The dremora officer currently haranguing the front ranks had not seen him, but a couple of scamps had.  He heard their rapidly pattering feet as they turned to run after, their screams of rage and alarm mingling with the cries of their brethren at the gate.

Zudarra had closed her eyes before her face touched the membrane.  She was half afraid that she would find herself not in the Deadlands, but the empty ruins of Coldharbour, and in some ways that would have been worse.  Her stomach twisted as she stepped through after Saraven and then she was running beside him without a moment's pause to get her bearings.

 

_ Scamps _ .  The weakest of daedra would ironically be one of the most deadly to Zudarra.  She peeked over the rocks and ducked back just as a ball of fire came whizzing over her head.

 

“We'll be seen if we fight them in the open,” she hissed.

 

The slope behind the gate lead up toward rocky hills.  They might be able to lose the scamps in those hills, or at least fight them without worrying about the entire army below noticing.

 

A scamp vaulted over the rocks, screeching as it came down feet first.  Zudarra thrust the greatsword up, skewering the creature through the pelvis in mid-air.  It's jaw, crowded with crooked yellow teeth, fell open in a scream as blood splattered Zudarra and Saraven like rain.  Two more scamps followed over the rocks, a third running around the pile.

 

Beside Zudarra, Saraven grunted assent as his eyes flicked between the three scamps.  When he moved it was not vampire-fast, but it was uncannily fast for a Dunmer.  He took a quick step forward toward the rocks, drawing the longsword in his right hand upward in a long stroke that split one scamp's belly from nave to chops.  Reeking guts poured over the rocks and the toes of his boots, and he felt the heat even through layers of boot and padding.  

 

The second one clawed at his face, hot sulfurous breath blasting his mouth and nose.  He raised his free arm to defend his unarmored head, and the daedra's claws scraped the mithral chain with a metallic screech.  On the down-stroke he hacked into its shoulder.  It staggered, screaming, and he stabbed into its leathery chest as another fireball flew past his shoulder aimed at the Cathay-raht.

 

Zudarra leaned back as she let the greatsword fall hard against her shoulder, shaking off the impaled scamp.  It convulsed on the ground as it quickly died, little rivers of blood filling the cracks in the stony ground.  Her tongue flicked out to lick the blood that had landed on her nose, the untamed corner of her mind frenzied by the smell and taste.  The armies below were no longer on her mind, only the need to survive the present battle.

 

She darted to the side just before the fireball hit, catching her on the right shoulder.  Heat seared her neck and armpit, scorching black the tips of her fur.  She launched pass Saraven with an angry growl, driving her blade through the scamps shoulder.  Its long claws flew up to grasp at the blade, yellow eyes wide with pain, and Zudarra grinned as she twisted.  The scamp screamed as the greatsword's teeth sawed through its flesh, then finally fell limp against the blade.  Zudarra shook the bleeding corpse onto the ground.

 

“Maybe we don't need to lead them away, after all,” she snorted.

 

Saraven whirled to stare through the distorted membrane.  A row of dremora were marching toward him, the first faces in the line showing startlement as a few caught sight of him, but then they were gone inside the gate.  It was in the process of happening again as he turned to run for the rocks.

 

“Heal yourself,” he hissed over his shoulder.  “It's going to be a long night.”  He started to climb,  hands inside his mithral sleeves as much as he could – damn it, he needed gloves for this kind of work, he was taking the gauntlets off the next dremora he killed whether they were heavy or no.  The rock was not only sharp but hot, not quite enough to blister the calloused flesh of his palms but certainly hot enough to make it uncomfortable to keep a grip.

 

He rolled over the top of a boulder and down the other side.  A fat vine, its gray surface disturbingly slick and fleshy, lashed at him like a whip as he landed on his feet.  It hit his armored back and shoulder without leaving a mark.  Without a pause he turned to make his way to his right, in the direction that would lead him in a rough semicircle around the gate and toward the bridge and the tower.  The vines covered many of the rocks, stirring gently as if in a breeze that was not there.

 

Zudarra pulled a mocking face at the Dunmer's back when he turned away -- _ I don't need you to tell me that -- _ but healed her aching burns in a quick flash of blue.  She hauled herself up the rocks after him, lifting her own weight easily.  From the top of the boulder she watched the vine whip Saraven's back and jumped down clearing the vines by several feet.  She eyed the others suspiciously as she prowled along.  Zudarra didn't want any of these bizarre daedric plants touching her.

 

They were well hidden by the downward slope of the levy now and could look up to see the final regiment passing through the flaming portal.  Zudarra didn't like that they could do nothing about all those dremora.  The Anvil gate had surely burned through by now, leaving nothing but a few disorganized guards between the monstrous horde and the city.  She thought of her mother, trapped in the dark cellar, listening to the muffled screams of her neighbors.  Lavinia was strong, she would not draw attention to herself by crying.  But could daedra smell fear?

 

_ Stop thinking about it.  You have work to do here. _

 

She jogged over the bridge, overtaking Saraven now that there weren't any potential threats in their way.  Lava gurgled loudly below them, fiery bubbles bursting from a black skin.  The bridge arched high over the ocean, but still the heat was nearly unbearable.  

 

The tower wasn't far after the bridge.  A single arched door stood at the base of it, cut from the same black stone as everything else with glowing daedric runes engraved on the frame.  Zudarra waited for Saraven to catch up before she pried the halves apart, revealing the blindingly bright pillar of light that cut through the center of the spire.  It came from a hole in the center of the room, protected by a guard rail, and traveled through another wide hole in the domed ceiling.  Even over the loud hum of the pillar Zudarra could hear voices on the walkway above, obscured by the ceiling from where she stood.  If they walked closer to the pillar, they might look up through the hole and catch a glimpse of a dremora.

 

There were several doors, seemingly randomly placed and not equidistant apart.  Another blood fountain was situated near the front door, tempting the vampire with an alluring coppery scent.

 

Saraven ran after Zudarra, unable to keep up until she slowed down, but not sick or weak.  He felt almost smug.  Being hydrated and fed did a lot to dispel his tendency to morbidity, and now there was work to do.  He needed there to be work to do.  He slid between the toothed doors after her, breathing hard – it had been a long enough run in armor and fervent heat – and ducked to one side to let his eyes adjust to the darker interior.  No enemy moved to attack at once.  The hum of the pillar of fire was an inescapable, irritating vibration through his boots, through his teeth, in the backs of his eyes.

 

There was nothing to indicate which door led where.  Did this place have a basement level?  He supposed they would have to try doors until they found a ramp leading up.  He moved toward the nearest one.  It yielded to pressure, though it was harder for him than it had been for Zudarra.  Behind lay a flat hallway.  He let it alone and moved to the next.  This one led upward.  He shoved it open as far as he could and started up, sword in hand.

 

There was an interrogative grunt from above him, and a query of “Kha velkad?”  Then he burst out the top of the ramp and almost ran into an armored dremora, this one wearing a full spiked helm and carrying a mace in one hand.  Saraven let his momentum carry him forward, bashing the creature in the chest with his forearm.  The impact drove him back a step without doing the slightest damage, but it had bought enough space for Zudarra to emerge from the hallway behind him.

 

Zudarra slid past them and behind the dremora in a vampiric blur, having no space to maneuver her long weapon in the mouth of the hall.  She chopped at the back of the dremora's knees with sword parallel to the ground just as he swung his mace at Saraven's head, taking advantage of the Dunmer's proximity.

 

Saraven ducked to his right, twisting violently from the waist as the mace whistled over his skull.  The dremora snarled and went suddenly to his knees, armor impacting with a loud, metallic clank against the stone floor.  The Dunmer tossed his longsword from his right to his left hand and whipped the blade around backhand.  

 

The dremora's head toppled from his neck.  Blood spurted upward from the point of severance.  The body flailed the mace for a moment before falling over.  Saraven stared at the sword in his hand, then back at the body.  Even at its sharpest his silver blade had not been able to do that in one blow.

 

They were in a room very like the one where they had first been caged together, a square chamber with high, thin panels of light on the walls.  There were two pillars near the center of the room with a bench between them.  There were no cages.  There was a corpse nailed to one of the pillars, held in place with bent metal rods, burning.  It was impossible to tell what species the headless, blackened thing had once been.  The stench of it filled the room.  A doorless entry marked the opposite wall, ramp leading upward.

 

Zudarra hungrily watched the geyser of blood before she tore her eyes away and turned towards the ramp.  They had to move quickly.

 

“Two above,” she informed her companion, guessing from the sound of footsteps up top.  There was little point in trying to conceal their own sounds.

 

The air crackled with lightning over their heads just before Zudarra reached the top, leaving black scorch marks on the ceiling behind her.  Two robed dremora waited in the center of a room held up by four pillars, a male and a female.  Unspent fire burned in the male's hands.  He watched, waiting for a clear shot.  Zudarra ducked back below the floor as soon as she saw them.  Even with her speed, running towards mages was a stupid idea.

 

Saraven watched her duck back, already reaching for his unspent scroll.  He flipped it open in his left hand as he held the longsword in his right.  Then he darted up the ramp and spun to the left, already speaking the word of power as he pointed at the first robed thing to appear in his line of sight.  He had an excellent view of the green spiral of Silence and the crimson fireball passing each other.  Then he threw himself on his belly just in time for it to singe the back of his head and heat his armor to the point of almost burning his flesh.  He rolled fruitlessly away from the inevitable lightning and managed to still absorb most of it, his body convulsing as white-hot agony rippled through mithral, flesh and nerves.

 

He couldn't move.  Whatever had kept him going through a lightning bolt two days ago was no longer with him.  He twitched in vain, trying to rise.  His hand still had a convulsive grip on his sword-hilt, steam rising from his burnt flesh where the charge had passed from hand to sword to floor.

\--

Zudarra sprang from the ramp as soon as the Dunmer went down, knowing she was most likely going to be on the floor convulsing with Saraven very soon, but not before her serrated blade got a taste of daedric blood.  The silenced mage turned to run, but Zudarra was faster and her greatsword sliced through his back just as the lightning hit.  The dremora's partially severed torso flopped over his lower half and he sagged to the ground.  His legs continued to violently kick with the rest of his body despite a severed spine, blood spraying everywhere from both jerking halves, thanks to the current that flowed from Zudarra's sword.

 

The Khajiit was left standing upright, face contorted in frozen agony.  Her armor clinked as she jerked and twitched, muscles spasming even as they cooked.

 

Saraven's face was turned to the wall.  He heard the rapid tak-tak-tak that was Zudarra running in heavy boots, the wet sklush-thud of the dremora being killed, and the violent crackling of the lightning bolt.  Then he heard harsh female laughter.  His left hand finally obeyed his order to close and open.  

 

“Foolish mortals,” said the other mage.  “Why would you even come to this place?  To face the might of Dagon's armies?”  Saraven managed to flop his head around in time to see her sauntering up to Zudarra.  She kicked at the Khajiit's shins.  “Fall, prey, that I may enjoy the fruits of my labors.”

 

Zudarra fell back with an awful clatter and sharp thwack as her head hit the stone.  The harsh sound still rang in her ears, compounding an already throbbing headache as she fought to gain control of her aching limbs.

 

The dremora grinned down at the helpless Khajiit with the same glee Zudarra herself often felt at ending a life.  She pulled back her arm as if to wind up a throw and thrust her hand forward, fingers flying open as the white light burst from her palm.

 

_ I won't lose to you! _ Zudarra jerked out clumsily with one leg, smacking the dremora's calf as the lightning hit.  There was very little force behind her blow, but all she needed was a touch.  Zudarra's armor rattled against the floor as both shook convulsively, steam rising from the chinks of her mail.  Her entire back cooked to char where it touched her armor, a horrifying stink of burned flesh and fur.  She could barely think through the agony of it, didn't even register the sound of the dremora falling over backwards, still alive but unable to move for several seconds.

 

Saraven closed his left hand, blue magicka spiraling up around him as he healed.  His right hand unmelded itself from the grip of the longsword, but he kept his grip.  He rolled rapidly to his feet as the dremora reached out to shock Zudarra again.  He saw the Khajiit make contact, conveying the charge back to her attacker.   _ Cleverer than I gave her credit for. _

 

He stalked over to look at them both.  Both were still breathing, though burning was a dreadful stink in his nostrils.  He clubbed the dremora in the head with the hilt of his sword, hard enough to stun her, not hard enough to kill.  The dremora grunted and twitched, eyes rolling upward.  Then he grabbed the mage by the collar and dragged her over to Zudarra.  He reached out to clamp a hand onto the Khajiit's shoulder, healing power transferring from one to the other.  

 

A week ago he might have considered letting her die of her wounds purely because she was a vampire.  He  _ should _ consider it now, because she would be hungry and he would be tired again before he had a new gorget.  He could not deal with that thought right now.  Instead he just held on and healed her again.

 

The absence of pain as her fried nerves healed was almost greater than any pleasure Zudarra had felt.   _ Almost.  _  Her fingers twitched as Saraven's magicka flowed through her body, stiffened muscles relaxing as burns gave way to soft, pink flesh beneath her striped fur.  As soon as her hand successfully made a fist Zudarra's upper body lurched forward, claws reaching out to yank the dremora from Saraven's grasp.  The limp body fell across her lap, head cradled in the Khajiit's hand like some horrible parody of a nurturing embrace.

 

The illusion was broken when Zudarra's maw flew open, wild crimson eyes flashing as her fangs fell upon the neck of the dremora with a greedy hiss.  The burned flesh under her tongue would be disgusting if Zudarra even noticed it.  Her eyes rolled back in pleasure as she drank, almost watching Saraven from the corner of her eye.  She was only vaguely aware of him, her senses overloaded with the taste and the smell of her meal.

 

Saraven stepped back as she seized the dremora.  He stood rigid, eyes fixed on the vampire – he could not say to himself _ the Khajiit  _ in this moment.  He wanted to turn away, but he did not allow himself to do so, opening and closing the fingers of his empty left hand.  _  Do not hide from yourself what you are doing.  This is what she is and will always be. _

 

Again the unfathomable po wer swelled in Zudarra's every muscle as her victim's pulse w eakened.  She yearned to keep keep sucking, but there was nothing left.  She threw aside the empty husk, snarling angrily that it was dry.  She needed more!  Zudarra scrambled up.  Still crouched, she glared up at Saraven, lips high over pink gums and dripping fangs.  Her forehead wrinkled as she hissed, almost ready to pounce on him when she came to her senses.  The bestial rage drained from her face and she stood, slow and confused.  Her sword lay at her feet beside a gray, shrunken body.

 

His face might have been made of stone.  He watched her rise, her features feral, insane, and he raised the longsword at the guard, prepared for the dreadful irony of what he had just done becoming a complete waste.  He was not so despairing now that he would let her kill him while there was still an important work to be done.  Not now.  Not this.  His left hand clenched into a fist, light beginning to glow against the palm as he prepared the magicka.

 

But then she stopped, straightened, transformed, and she was standing there blinking at him as if she did not know what had happened.  He lowered the sword cautiously, letting the power dissipate from his open hand.  Saraven jerked his head at the greatsword where it lay beside the shriveled corpse, turning to lean on one of the pillars.  His heart rattled and thundered in his chest, and why?  Should he be dismayed at the thought that he might have to kill another vampire?

 

_ And tell her mother what? _  Oh, good.  That was a helpful thought, he thought bitterly.

 

Zudarra looked down at the sword near her feet and bent to pick it up, brows furrowed in confusion.

 

_ I almost attacked him.  I wouldn't merely have fed, I would have killed him. _  She frowned at herself, glancing quickly at Saraven's face and then away to see his reaction but not meeting his eyes -- he was obviously shaken.  She had almost thrown away her only hope of survival here, her only hope of saving her mother!  And if she killed one who sought to foil Mehrunes Dagon, what would Molag Bal do to her then?  Her stomach clenched with dread and Zudarra turned away from Saraven, too frazzled by what had happened to mask the fear on her face.

 

There wasn't time to ruminate on her loss of control.  She'd been taken up by bloodlust, that was all.  It happened sometimes, but there hadn't been any “accidents” in months, back when she was a very new vampire.

 

_ The corpse of the vagabond stared at her from the dark alley, mouth hanging open and eyeballs round in a frozen expression of terror.  The body had aged fifty years under her fangs, all wrinkly and colorless, skin loose on the bone.  He'd been a handsome young Breton, so different from the soldiers with old injuries and dirty orphans who seemed to belong to the streets.  Maybe an addict, maybe one touched with madness.  She didn't know or care.  Zudarra's thoughts were dominated by thirst, a raging beast that clawed through her belly and mind. _

 

_ She didn't intend to kill him.  But once that hot liquid gushed into her throat, she could think of nothing else. _

 

_ The vampire turned and ran, a shadow in the dark, chased by the fear of what she had become. _

 

_ In the morning Zudarra would forget her terror.  He was weak and she was strong and the death of the weak meant nothing to her.  She would work harder at controlling the beast within for her own sake, not for anyone else's.  If a few beggars had to die to feed her, it was no great loss. _

 

Zudarra hefted the blood-drenched greatsword against her pauldron and looked over her shoulder, her face a perfect emotionless mask.

 

“Thanks for the heal; I owe you one.  Let's get going.”

 

Saraven nodded and pushed away from the pillar, looking around the room.  Another ramp led upward, and there was a pair of doors separate from the doorway they had entered.  He went to pry them a cautious inch open.  The enormous vertical shaft ringed by walkways was starting to feel familiar, with its pillar of flame piercing the center and casting dim yellow-orange light.

 

“Right,” he said.  “Up.”  

 

They found two scamps and a clannfear and covered perhaps a quarter-mile of vertical ramp before they saw another dremora.  Saraven kept a warier eye on Zudarra, trying to keep her on one side and never behind him.  The first time they had been in the Deadlands together, he had believed his own death to be inevitable, and it had blunted his ability to think clearly.  Now that he was planning to survive past the gate, Zudarra was more of a problem.  

 

Because if not him, if not Zudarra, who was going to close the next one?  One Argonian could only travel so far, so fast.  He was not so arrogant as to believe he would long survive these attempts on his own.  But what to do about the vampire?  He could not trust her.  He would never be able to trust her.

 

_ Then you will devise checks against her power as best you can.  You have been alone a long time, Saraven Gol.  You will survive, and Zudarra is the greatest sword against Dagon that you will ever wield. _

 

Undoubtedly she would be either offended or amused or both at that idea.  For now they fought their way up the spiral, toward the domed membrane far above.

 

They could see the red dome just above them now, the drone of the pillar loud enough to drown out any possible noises from above.  Zudarra had to assume the defenses at the top would be similar to the tower at Kvatch; there had been two mages and a warrior then.  The scroll of silence had been used, and both of them were running low on magicka -- Zudarra could perhaps afford to heal herself once or twice more.  Their chances were looking slim.

 

She was acutely aware of Saraven's eyes boring into her back.  He was very careful not to let her out of his sight.  Zudarra should fully understood why, she should be proud that she struck fear in his heart... but she wasn't.  He viewed her as a mindless animal, not a worthy opponent or ally.  Someday, when this was all over, Saraven would be the mindless one.  Zudarra's hand clenched against the hilt of her weapon, glaring at the walkway ahead of her in indignation.  She would see to it that his fears were justified.

 

They crawled slowly up the steep ramp, this time using the whining pillar to conceal their sounds.  As Zudarra's head cleared the floor, the veiny membrane stretching over the middle of the room was just a few feet away, glistening wetly in the fiery light.  Its scent was faintly human, like the fleshy pods they had seen before.  This dome was exactly like the other, a little black ball floating in the pillar by a balcony on the upper floor.

 

A fully armored dremora, helm and all, was strolling around the lower level, a huge battleaxe slung across his back.  His back was presently turned to them, and two robed figures stood on the upper walkway.  These dremora hadn't noticed them, either.  She wondered how the daedra selected who would march on Tamriel and who would stay behind.  Were they fighting the rejects, the washouts?  If so, Zudarra pitied the Imperial forces back home.

 

“We might run past the warrior, and hope to knock the stone out of the fire before they can get a shot,” Zudarra said, low under her breath.  Two moving targets meant one of them had a fairly good chance of reaching the balcony by the pillar.

 

Saraven actually smiled, briefly and a bit sourly.  

 

“You might,” he said.  “They're not faster than a vampire.  I'll try to engage him under the shelf, where they can't easily hit me at range.  Then, when they believe I'm alone, make your run.”  Drawing the attention of three dremora by himself was a suicide mission, but Zudarra didn't have any better ideas and she wasn't about to argue.  She sheathed her greatsword and hunkered down to wait.

 

Would he still be sent back to Cyrodiil, to Nirn, if he was not next to the stone when it was displaced?  Or would he be crushed in the rain of debris this time?  Saraven’s heart jerked at the thought, and he was surprised to realize he was actually afraid to die today.  Inwardly he laughed at himself.  _  Now is no time to start to care. _

 

Outwardly he flicked the longsword, clearing any last drops of blood from the hungry teeth of the blade, and started purposefully up the ramp.  As he rose fully into view he accelerated into a trot, then a run, and then just as the armored figure started to turn to see what the noise of booted feet was about he jinked sharply left under the back edge of the walkway.  A fleshy pod pulsed and throbbed in the shadows, and a small fountain full of something that was not blood stood there.  The contents flowed like water, but they were blue and luminous.

 

The clanking of the armored dremora as he ran for Saraven, slinging the axe from his back, drew their attention.  Fire blazed in both of their hands, one coming down the steps opposite Saraven and the other running along the upper walkway in search of a good shot.  Zudarra sprang from the ramp, toward the stairs on the right, as soon as the mage on the upper level loosed his fireball.

 

The mage on the lower level didn't have as clear a shot; his armored ally was blocking the way, roaring as his axe sailed towards Saraven's head.  Zudarra launched into the air and the dremora turned, eyes wide at the mass of steel and fur hurtling towards his face and raised his hands.  Zudarra's feet slammed down on the daedra just as fire burst from his hands, both of them screeching as the dremora was smashed to the ground and flames exploded around the Khajiit's paws.  She didn't stop, leaping up for the stairs on burned pads.  Every step was a jarring pain and she opened her palm as she ran, blue light flashing.  Any second now the other dremora might hit her in the back with its flame.  Even as fast as she was, on the stairs her trajectory was obvious, and the burns had slowed her down.

 

Saraven dove and rolled.  The fireball impacted on the wall behind him with a roar, heating his back and shoulder, and the axe came down a fraction of an inch to the left of his head an instant later with a metallic report large enough to fill the world.  He jabbed upward as he scrambled to his feet, roughly aiming for the inner seam of the dremora's greaves, but the blow was sloppy and it clanged off the armor plating instead.  The dremora swung the axe again, and Saraven rolled backward to avoid being decapitated and then dove to his right to avoid a stamping boot.

 

He heard two screams and a whomph of expanding flame from overhead.  One mage was dead and Zudarra was burned, but he still heard the slap of her paws on the surface.  She was still upright.  Saraven got to his feet just in time to lean away from another swing.  The dremora jabbed at him with the butt of the weapon rather than initiate another slow swipe, and the blow connected with his chest, jarring him from head to toe.  For a second he couldn't breathe, but he dared not stop moving.  The second mage was moving away from him, probably distracted by Zudarra.  Saraven turned and sprinted for the ramp, one hand glowing with flame.

 

“The Empire!” he screamed, and hurled his own fireball at the dremora.  The mage paused with one hand upraised as the flames engulfed him, unharmed but confused.

 

Zudarra's magicka spiraled down her legs, the cracked black flesh gradually turning pink on her jelly bean toes as she sprinted up the stairs.  That was it, she realized, the last of her magicka.  The burns healed more reluctantly than other wounds, expending every last drop of her energy.

 

She skidded to a stop on the balcony, and now the line of sight between her and the mage was broken by the fiery pillar that rose from below.  To shoot her now would be to risk hitting their precious little stone and collapse the tower either way.

 

The roar of the pillar thundered in Zudarra's ears, the sweltering heat of the pulsing beam blasting her face even from a foot away.  Every instinct told her to stop as her arm thrust forward, smoke rising from her hands as the fur burst into flames.  Her fingers had not even touched the fire yet.  An animalistic roar ripped from Zudarra's muzzle as her hand forced its way into the raging inferno, the ashes of her fur crumbling away, the skin beneath burning red and then black.  Her claws bubbled and warped in the heat and she knocked the sphere aside with her dead, clublike hand.  A fiery explosion boomed in her face, sending the vampire flying back against the far wall.

 

The armored dremora rattled after Saraven, aiming a kick for the Dunmer's side, so hard that he heard ribs snap under his chain shirt, and he was thrown sideways under the balcony to fetch up against the wall.  Black and white spots flared at the edges of his vision as he struggled to breathe, chest a mass of agony in front and on his right side.  He was dimly aware of the dremora stalking toward him, snarling something derisive.

 

Something overhead exploded.  The balcony shook with the force of it, and then a black sphere about eight inches across dropped from above and hit the floor behind the dremora with a thunderous impact.  The daedra spun, axe at the ready, and then roared with fury in the moment before the floor cracked under his feet and spilled him into the endless depth below.  Saraven staggered upright against the wall and ran for the ramp to see if Zudarra was alive, but he couldn't see her and the walkway buckled under his feet.  There was a rumbling and cracking from overhead as the roof and the ceiling started to give, and he looked up into a majestically shattering ruin as he started to fall.  Everything bloomed white -

 

\- and he landed on his back in the dirt.  He blinked, gasping, as his vision gradually cleared to reveal the black sky over Anvil.  The last wisps of crimson were just clearing, revealing the cold and distant glitter of the stars.  He started to curl his left hand automatically, to heal himself, but then he remembered Zudarra.  He sat up, baring his teeth at the pain in his chest, and he looked around for the vampire.  With his right hand he sheathed his longsword.  He had held onto it through all of it.

 

Zudarra couldn't recall the impact against the wall, but the back of her head throbbed horribly.  That was nothing in comparison to the searing pain of the burns on her face and arm, although her hand was numb after the wrist, the nerves completely dead.  Zudarra moaned as the quaking tower jostled her body and then she was weightless as the floor gave way beneath her.  Zudarra wasn't afraid.  She would welcome death at that moment, anything to escape the torture of her burns.

 

She came to laying on her back, one eye cracking open to look at blurry stars, too confused to realize she was falling in and out of consciousness.  Voices shouted in the distance -- mortals, they lacked the rasping quality of dremora.  A patch of bloody, raw skin spanned from the top of Zudarra's nose to her chin, the edges of her lips eaten away by fire.  Her right hand was a charred lump still frozen with her fingers curled open beside her.

 

Piles of daedric and mortal corpses lay in the main street sixty yards away, visible through the hole that had once been the main gate.  The charred remains of the edges still stood, held up by the iron bars that had reinforced the large double doors.  A lone clannfear ran past the opening, only to skid to a heap in the street as arrows rained on its back.  Someone was alive inside the city.

 

The fingers of Zudarra's left hand twitched feebly.  Her magicka was completely dry.  She closed her eyes, wishing she could just pass out or die already.

 

Saraven rolled to one knee as he caught sudden movement from the corner of one eye, but the clannfear was already dead, ploughing into a bloody mound some yards away.  The gate was in ruins and he could hear distant shouts, so someone in Anvil had survived.

 

Zudarra lay nearby, sprawled on her back, one hand charred to the point of almost being coal, half her face burned down to the level of muscle.  He crawled rapidly over to kneel beside her, trying to breathe shallowly.  She wasn't ash, so she wasn't dead, but she must be in terrible pain if she was at all conscious.  This was Saraven's fault.  He had asked to deal with the stone, and she must have put her hand into the flames to push it out of position.  He wasn't sure what had happened to her face, but it certainly would not have happened if she had not been alone on the platform.

 

“Zudarra?”  He laid a hand on the shoulder of the burnt arm and concentrated, letting go all of his remaining power.  “You did it.  This one really is all yours.”

 

The face looking down at hers was as sere as ever, set in an expression of stern impassivity as it had been at the first moment she saw him.  He was paler than he had been two days ago, but not at the point of collapse, not about to expire; the heart that beat in her ears was strong and steady.

 

A couple of heads clad in mail hoods peered cautiously from the top of the wall, behind the tips of arrows.  No one started shooting.  They were too busy staring at the jagged upthrust remains of the gate.

 

The voice that spoke to her was foggy and distant, muffled as if through cotton.  Then the refreshing tingle of magicka flowed through her body.  Zudarra's face itched as skin regrew on her muzzle, fresh fur growing in soft and white on the new skin.  She opened her eyes as the pain receded, realizing where she was and what had happened.  The pain in her arm ebbed and sensation returned to her fingers; she clenched her fist, testing her grip, and then used both palms to shove herself into a sitting position.

 

She grinned widely at Saraven, her earlier resignation completely forgotten.  She nodded over his shoulder towards the figures on the wall, who were now gawking in amaze at the sight below and shouting for others to come see.  The Khajiit knocked the Dunmer's shoulder with her fist, oblivious to his broken ribs.

 

“Wipe that dull expression off your face.  We're alive, and heroes!” 

 

Saraven hunched his shoulder in time to brace himself slightly, but he still grimaced at the impact, smothering a wheeze.

 

“You're a hero.  I was just there at the same time.”  He climbed carefully to his feet.  “Let's go find your mother.  And then maybe the Chapel.”

 

He raised a fist as he turned his face up to the wall, filling his lungs in spite of the pain.  “ANVIL STANDS!  THE GATE IS CLOSED!”

 

An answering cheer came in response, ragged and scattered, but unbroken, indomitable.

 

“ANVIL STANDS!  THE GATE IS CLOSED!”

 

He could hear the shout being repeated along the wall and off into the city as he limped in through the broken gates.

 

Pride swelled in Zudarra's breast as she passed beneath the entry, stepping over the bodies of the slain.  Joyful shouts rang in the air as guards raised up their shields, holding the crest of Anvil toward the heavens.  This was a sound she lived for -- the admiration of hundreds, all come to bask in her glory, every eye in the stadium focused on her and cheering for her.

 

But this cheer was not just for Zudarra.  These were the exultant cries of survivors, reveling in their shared triumph over evil.  They had fought for a cause, not petty games.  Even in the midst of her pride, Zudarra felt something dark leaking in to taint that golden emotion.  Her trials as a gladiator were a parody of war.  She had never known the same level of horror and fear as she faced in the Deadlands.  And no one had ever looked to her with gratitude for anything she had done.

 

The streets were slick with blood and piles of gore.  Despite the overpowering stink of burned flesh hanging in her nostrils, the daedric blood sparked a thirst in Zudarra.  She was healed, but weary and hungry.

 

Morvayn's Peacemakers was still standing, though the bronze door swung from its hinges, bent nearly in half.  And this was the case with many buildings.  Some roofs had burnt, but most things were still standing.  The forces of the Deadlands had not had a great siege engine to bring to bear here.  It was worth noting, Saraven thought, that the number of the great walking batterers was not infinite.  Even the resources of a Daedra Prince were not infinite.

 

The spire of the Chapel of Dibella still stood above the city to the South and West as Saraven turned that way, moving toward Lavinia's house.  Its stained glass upper windows glowed gently from within, light, life, hope.  A barricade of pews and chairs was stacked up in front of the double doors.

 

Bodies lay in the street, people, clannfear, scamps, dremora.  The stench of burning and death was not as bad as it had been in Kvatch, but the reminder of war and mortality was there.

 

Saraven was walking stiffly, obviously injured.  Zudarra looked over at him, a strange expression on her face.  The Dunmer may have saved her life just then, healing her when he obviously needed it himself.  Part of her was irritated by that.  She wanted nothing from him, she wanted no help from  _ anyone _ .  But Lavinia owed her life to this man as much as Zudarra.  The Khajiit opened her mouth, breathing in to prepare for words, then faltered.

 

“...I have to see to Ma.  We might have a potion at the house, when you get there,” she said instead, somewhat apologetically, and broke into a sprint.  Saraven wouldn't have been able to keep up healthy, let alone injured, and she was impatient to check on her mother.

 

“Go on,” he said to the air where Zudarra had been.  Then he grunted and kept on walking as she vanished into the distance.  It seemed like there were fewer bodies as he got closer to Lavinia's home.  That was hopeful.  Maybe people had actually managed to evacuate in time to survive.  

 

Based on the distribution of corpses, it seemed that some guards and townsfolk had taken a stand at the gate.  Everyone else must have fled to the waterfront or the castle.  The castle was on an island accessible only by a bridge about two people wide, making it an effective bottleneck for the invading army.  

 

Zudarra's heart seemed to flip in her chest when she saw the house.  The front door hung open, windows smashed.  It was unmolested otherwise.  She flew down the back alley without missing a beat.

 

“Mama, it's me!” she called, chucking aside the wood blocking the door and throwing it open as soon as it was clear enough, the remaining logs thudding onto the ground.  Lavinia emerged slowly, clutching at her shawl and trembling as she climbed up the steps.

 

“Oh, Zudarra!  I'm so glad you're safe!  It's been hours since I heard a peep-” she fell against the Khajiit, voice breaking.  Only her mail protected Zudarra from the crushing hug.  “I thought for sure you had died out there.”  Lavinia pulled away, eyes shining with tears of joy, but then her hand clamped over her mouth, eyes wide with horror.  “Where's your friend, the Dunmer?”

 

“Saraven is fine.  He'll be here in a minute,” Zudarra said, gently guiding the older woman back towards the house.  

 

“It was awful.  I could hear them crashing around upstairs,” Lavinia was saying as she went inside.  Zudarra ducked back to look down the street for Saraven.

 

The Dunmer was starting to feel tired now that there was no need to run and fight every second.  His eyes felt full of sand, but someone might see if he stopped to rub at them.  If he closed his eyes he was afraid he would fall down.  He wanted a wash and a quiet place to lie down for about a day and a half.

 

He felt a certain sense of satisfaction.  It was horror, burning, and death, but it was not Kvatch.  What they had done had made a difference.  Even if he had served mainly to support Zudarra's rampage through Dagon's troops, he had accomplished something.  It had been some time since he had felt that from his ordinary work.  Usually he found a vampire by the trail of bodies, by the people who were already past saving or at the very least already harmed, left to try and put a life back together with a ravished mind and a half-drained body.  Today there were at least some survivors who were alive and well even if they had to replace some of their possessions.

 

Zudarra was looking out of the broken front door up ahead.  Her ears were up, that seemed like a good sign.  Saraven continued his steady if somewhat bent progress up to the door, leaning on the door frame to look around.

Zudarra followed her mother inside, seeing that Saraven had made it down the road.

 

Lavinia could make nothing out in the darkness.  She knew her home well enough to get around sightless, but stumbled through the overturned furniture and ceramic shards from fallen plates that littered the floor.  A warm breeze pressed on them gently from the broken window as Zudarra lit an oil lamp for the others to see by, setting it on the table.  She didn't want to look at another fire for the next fifty years.

 

“Saraven is injured and both of us are drained.  Do you keep any healers?” she asked, picking up the chairs and then a fallen shelf.  The room stank of scamp.

 

“Yes.  Well, they might be a bit old,” Lavinia said, stooping down to dig through the bottom drawer of a cabinet.  She pulled out a little corked vial, a ruddy brown liquid sloshing inside, and turned towards the Dunmer as he entered with the bottle in her outstretched hand.

 

He eyed the bottle with misgiving.  “Thank you, Ma'am, but keep it in case of mishap.  I'll be seen to at the Chapel and come back to check on you both tomorrow, now that we know you're all right.  Do you need anything, Zudarra?”

 

Lavinia tsked, pulling back the potion with a concerned frown.

 

“You don't have to walk all that way-”

 

“Ma, it's obviously spoiled.  Don't poison him.”

 

The vampire's eyes flicked briefly over Saraven's body and returned to his eyes.  As usual, his powerful scent clouded her senses, reminding her of the ever persistent hunger.  She did need something, but it was nothing he'd fetch for her.

 

“No, we're both fine.”  She felt that she should say something more.  It was unfortunate that he'd have to walk across town in that sorry state, and perhaps find no one alive at the chapel to help him get past the barricaded doors.  Zudarra could throw him over her shoulder and be there in two shakes, but that would be uncomfortable for both of them.  She couldn't offer that, and he wouldn't ask.

 

“Thanks... Saraven.  For your help,” she said uneasily, standing very still as she stared at him, a jar picked up from the floor still in hand.  It was her fault he was in this situation.

 

He looked back at her for a long moment.  He firmly rejected the possibility that Lavinia might not be safe with her.  Some other poor sod might not be, but her mother?  As much as he would like to fall back on old habits and say she is a vampire, no one is safe, he knew that was probably not true.  She had possessed enough self control to keep poor Vandalion alive through many feedings over time.  

 

That he could not trust her not to use him while he was exhausted and unconscious must be down to what had passed between them.  Or it might just be that she thought of him as another like the Altmer, who had existed to serve her.  It would fit.

 

There were things he wanted to say.   _ Make sure it's someone who deserves it.   _ But the old lady was still there, nearly blind and completely trusting of her adopted daughter, and he would not for the world plant the slightest doubt in her mind of what Zudarra had become.

 

“You're welcome,” he said at last.  “Good night, Ma'am.”  He bowed to Lavinia very carefully and turned to make his slow way up the street.  It would be a long walk to the chapel, stepping over bodies, pausing to lean on an empty house from time to time.  His chest throbbed.  By the time he was back to that neighborhood the guards were walking the streets with torches, looking for any survivors who might be trapped under bodies or debris.  He watched one run a sword through a scamp that had not even twitched.  They were understandably jumpy.  He was glad that the silver gleam of his mithral chain and the white of his hair would mark him as no daedra at all even in the dark.

 

An older Imperial in the same guard uniform as the others, chainmail with the city's insignia, hailed him as he passed.

 

“You there, where are you going?”

 

“To the Chapel of Dibella,” Saraven said, turning slowly to answer.  “Are the barriers still up?”

 

“I shouldn't wonder, but if you knock they may let you in,” the man said, looking him over slowly.  A woman came up behind him, her face weary behind the nasal of her round helmet.  She had a bow and quiver on her back and the slender build most common in Bretons.  “You don't look so good, friend.  I'll detach one of my men to take you there.”

 

“Thanks, but I'll be fine.  What your men are doing is important.”

 

“I'll go, Sergeant,” said the woman behind him.  “He was with the Khajiit, the big one in armor.  They closed the gate.”

 

The Imperial turned to stare at him.  “Good gods, a Dunmer in mithral, you're right.  You should've said, mer!  Of course we'll get you to the Chapel.  Go along with him, Corporal Benetton.  See that he gets healed up, gets whatever he needs.  What happened to your friend, is she all right?”

 

“She's taking care of her mother,” he said.  “Lives here in town.  It's a small house, and they'd some picking up to do, so I left them to it.  And really it was she who closed the gate.  People should know that.”

 

“Well, when you see them you can tell them they have the gratitude of the City of Anvil,” said the sergeant.  “I imagine she'll be hearing it from the neighbors as they trickle back anyway, word travels fast.  What's your  name?”

 

“I'm Saraven Gol.  She is Zudarra the Bloody.”

 

“Well, good night, Saraven Gol.  You take good care of this mer, Corporal.”

 

“Yessir.”  The woman saluted.  She looked Saraven over, thought better of offering him an arm, and walked beside him instead.

 

They found the Chapel still barricaded.  Corporal Benetton shoved her way past one end of the barricade to get to the West doors and pounded on them with a mailed fist.  “Open up!  I'm with the Anvil City Watch.  All's safe!”

 

There was a sound of clattering furniture from within; apparently they'd barricaded from inside as well.  A moment later the door opened a cautious crack.  A Redguard woman, skin a deep chocolate hue, peered out at them.  Then she opened the door fully.  She had a luscious figure, and her colorful robes showed some cleavage, appropriate to the service of her particular goddess.  Her hair was dressed in elaborate cornrows.  Her outer robes were torn in vertical strips as if by claws, but she had no visible injuries.

 

“All's safe?” she asked.

 

“The gate to Oblivion is shut and the daedra are dead,” Benetton said.  “We're hunting for any survivors, but it's fairly certain there are none left by now.  This mer helped to close the great gate.  He's injured.”

 

“Zudarra the Bloody closed the great gate,” he repeated firmly.  “I was just there at the same time.”

 

“All right, come in, come in.”  The sanctuary looked immaculate except for a dead clannfear in the aisle where the pews had been.   It was not immediately clear what had killed it.  The reek of sulfur and death was almost overridden by the smell of incense, making the air bittersweet.  

 

It was a vast room, wooden support pillars towering away toward the tapering ceiling, candelabras near the altar giving off a warm, dim light.  The stained glass window shed colored light over the main altar to the Nine and the smaller altars to each individual aedra.   They were roughly cylindrical, barely ornamented little fonts of stone.  An altar cloth lay draped across the center of the great Altar of the Nine, but even that was unpretentious, ridged but without fresco or paint.  

 

“When I've seen to this gentleman I'll go and tell the others,” the priestess said.  “They're hiding below.”

 

“It's really just my -” Saraven started to say, and then the world turned blue and brilliant.  Pain melted away in an intense, euphoric wash of healing energy, a massively empowered version of the spell compared to the one he knew and used.  He was left blinking stupidly at the Redguard.

 

“Is that better?  Does anything still hurt?” she asked, hand resting on his arm.  “You're looking a bit pale.”

 

“No, that'll do very well.  Thank you very much.  May I approach the altar before I go?”

 

“Of course.  Dibella's blessing, Sir.”

 

“And to you, Priestess.” He bowed deeply to her and turned to move toward the Altar of the Nine.  There he sank to one knee, reaching up a hand to touch the altar briefly.  The stone was cool against his palm.

 

_ I don't know if I'm any good to you now, after so many years of serving a Daedra Prince, _ he prayed silently.  _  But I think right now we want the same thing.  And if you can see your way clear to keeping Zudarra and me going a while longer, I think we can help a lot of your followers.  I hope Velaru and Dorova are happy where they are now, and I hope that they never think of me.  Thank you for your time. _

 

He rose and turned toward the door.  Corporal Benetton was still waiting there, watching him with her head on one side.

 

“I'm fine from here, Corporal,” he said.  “I'll stay at the Fighters Guild.  I'm a member there.”

 

“Then it'll be a short enough walk,” she said, smiling at him.  “Come on.”

 

The guildhouse was empty.  One of the front doors had been torn off, but there was no sign of real carnage inside.  The cushions around the practice room floor were barely disarranged, the dummy still hanging from its chains in the center of the stone floor, the straw target still standing.  The crimson banner of the sword that was the Guild insignia hung unmolested.  Racks of iron weapons stood against the walls.  Everyone had gone out to fight the daedra the moment the gate opened, he suspected.  Probably those who had survived were still out with the City Watch.

 

“Do you know if Azzan survived?” he asked Benetton as he took stock.

 

“I'm afraid I don't, but I haven't heard that he was killed,” she said.  “He's the guild head here, yes?  I imagine he wouldn't fall easily.”

 

“No.  Well, I'm just going to wash up and turn in, Corporal.  Get some rest if you can.”

 

“And you.  Good night, Sir.”

 

He returned her bow and watched her out of sight.  Then he went to the pump in the little yard out back to have a drink and collect a bucket of water.  There was a crude curtained stall for washing, hole cut in the floor for water runoff, and he peeled off armor, padding, and underthings to clean all of it and himself as best he could.  Certainly he would smell significantly better tomorrow than he had today.  Unabashedly naked, revealing the layered gray scars of long years, he hauled everything with him into the windowless barracks room.   It was a long, narrow space with beds lined up against the wall and a wooden trunk at the end of each bed.  He picked a bunk at the far end of the room that looked unoccupied, shoved the armor into the chest, and laid the clothes on top of it to dry.  Then he climbed into bed with the dremora sword in its scabbard lying next to him.  He had been in armor for at least two days, and without it he felt weightless, floating.  The moment his head hit the pillow everything swam and faded.  Blessedly, he did not dream.


	7. Chapter 7

He gradually awakened to a hum of voices.  Saraven opened his eyes on a room that he at first did not recognize, other people in the beds, more talking in the doorway.  The warm light of day poured in through the doorway from the outer room.  A slight movement of his hand found his sword still with him, red and evil-looking in its scabbard.

 

Anvil.  He squinted as memory ambushed him.  He did not feel sore this morning.  Apparently Dibella's priestess had healed that too.  He sat up slowly, and only then realized he had no pants on under his coverlet.  The loincloth wrap he normally wore as an undergarment lay draped over the end of the bed.  He glanced around, shrugged, and got up to dress.  Nobody paid him much mind.  To see a naked person of either sex getting dressed in here was not so unusual.  Usually only the very youngest were shy.

 

His things were mostly dry.  Apparently he had slept longer than he realized.  He armored up, put on his baldric and boots, and went up to see if there was food.  No one was in the dining hall., a long, narrow upstairs room with a couple of big wooden tables with benches and many cupboards lining the walls.  By the condition of the light, it was probably already after lunch-time.  He ended up eating two potatoes, a chunk of salt pork, two oranges and a half-loaf of bread.  He drank water and not mead.  He had not touched alcohol in some years except where the water was really bad and small beer was the only option.  Vampires would pounce on any slightest sign of weakness or distraction.

 

He had better go and check on Zudarra.  If she hadn't found some poor fool to feed on during the night he would have to do something about that, too.  He looked forward to that possibility with a dull, leaden feeling in his gut, but it was his responsibility, no one else's.  Saraven set out for Lavinia's house in the sun of the early afternoon. Some of the bodies were already gone, all of those that were human or mer or beast-folk.  A few children were even out, prodding at dead daedra with sticks, shrieking and running back into their houses as their parents worked at getting things back in order.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra got back to picking up the house when Saraven had left, glad to have him and his damnable scent away.  It was torture to smell what she couldn't have when she was already hungry.  Lavinia kept insisting that Zudarra go upstairs to bed.  Zudarra knew her mother couldn't see well enough to avoid the broken glass and ceramic all over the floor, so she finished cleaning while giving her mother a brief summary of what they had done inside the Deadlands.

 

When that was done she let her mother help her out of her armor and went upstairs for a well-needed bath.  She still had blood encrusted on her face and neck, with only a neat little circle of clean white fur in the area where it had been burned away and regrown.  The bathroom was uncomfortably tiny and it was impossible for Zudarra to completely submerge her body in the little claw-foot tub, but at least the warm water she poured over herself was pleasant.  She watched the water turn a frothy gray-red as she scrubbed her fur with soap and rinsed it away with a cup.

 

Her mother had left old clothes neatly folded at the bathroom door.  Zudarra's lips stretched back in the faintest hint of a smile as she picked them up.  The old scent of a mortal Khajiit still clung to the clean linen, a high-collared, long sleeved shirt and tan trousers.  The shirt was a faded dull gray-blue, but the remembered when it had been vibrant.

 

The linen stretched across her broad muscles, just tight enough to be uncomfortable sleep clothes without being too ridiculous.  Zudarra had always been muscular, but more so since becoming a vampire.  Her extra change of armor padding would probably have been better to sleep in, but Lavinia meant well and Zudarra wasn't sure she'd be sleeping that night in any case.

 

She came downstairs to see her mother had made a bed on the cushioned bench and was fast asleep, scrunched up uncomfortably in the little space.  Hiding in the cellar for hours, listening to screams and wondering if Zudarra was dead had to have been mentally exhausting for her.  

 

There was only one bedroom upstairs.  It had once housed two beds, but Zudarra had insisted on getting rid of hers when she moved out, to give Lavinia more space.  Zudarra gingerly scooped up her mother, quilt and all, and slowly edged her way upstairs.  She had to turn sideways going up, back pressed against the wall.  It was a wonder Lavinia slept through it, but she did, and Zudarra laid the Imperial woman down gently on top of the coverlet and arranged the quilt to cover her legs.  Then she turned downstairs and quietly closed the front door behind herself, stepping into the cool Anvil night.  The bottom hinges on the door had been ripped from the wall.  Zudarra had brought enough gold to pay for repairs, although she had a feeling it would take awhile to find someone to do it.

 

The streets were mostly quiet.  Zudarra bumped into guards a few times, and from them she learned that all survivors were being sent to the castle while the Anvil guard and volunteers swept the city for remaining daedra.  Every alley and side street was utterly deserted save for the guards who always traveled in groups.

 

There was nothing for her here.  She might make her way to the castle to feed, but the chances of finding a person alone?  Not likely.  Zudarra gave up after a few hours of fruitless hunting and returned home.  She didn't  _ need _ to feed, but it would have been nice.  She wasn't used to going without for any stretch of time thanks to her thrall, and the burns she'd suffered had taken so much out of her.

 

She plopped down tiredly on the downstairs bench.  She was far too tall to lay down on it, but she could lean back and maybe doze till morning.  Sleep was always shallow and dreamless for her.  It felt good to be still and warm and silent, but it wasn't restful the way sleep was to a mortal.  Zudarra tried to turn off her brain, but her thoughts kept returning to Coldharbour and other things she did not want to face.

 

It was almost a relief when the sting of the sunrise fell across her nose.  She jerked awake, glaring at the peach-and-purple sky outside the broken window.  It wouldn't kill her, Zudarra knew, but it was an uncomfortable prickle like needles stabbing all over her skin that wouldn't let her rest.  She retreated to the upstairs hallway and sat at the top of the steps, eyeing the sliver of light that fell across the ground from the broken door.

 

Lavinia got up about an hour later, and Zudarra ignored her protests at having been given the bed, but she gladly took a turn in it for a nap while Lavinia washed her clothes.  She laid with the blankets hunched up over her head, wondering what she was going to do about this predicament, when Lavinia yelled up the stairs that Zudarra should come down for lunch.  She groaned and rolled out of bed, the sun from the upstairs windows already stinging her.

 

The Khajiit's face was haggard and weary as she trudged downstairs, shoulders slumped and tail tip jittering in the stinging light.  She winced at the brightness in the downstairs room, ears flattening against her skull for the little protection that offered them.  Lavinia had a big pot of porridge stirring over a small fire in the hearth.

 

“I'm not hungry, Ma.  I had a big breakfast while you were asleep,” she said. 

 

“Well that's nonsense,” Lavinia said, just as a knock sounded on the door.  Zudarra was closest, but the idea of pulling open the door and being hit with the full brunt of the sun made her stomach clench.

 

“Who is it?” she barked, leaning out into the entry hall.

 

“It's Saraven Gol,” said a voice from outside the door.

 

Zudarra groaned and stalked over to yank open the door, quickly retreating back into the other room without looking at him.  Now, in addition to sitting in the burning sun, she'd have to burn while wallowing in his intoxicating scent.  It was torture, pure torture.

 

She slumped down on the bench across from the hearth, shoulders hunched up for the little good it did to cover her neck.  Lavinia stood, smiling widely at the Dunmer as he entered with her hands clasped in front of her chest.

 

“Welcome back, Mr. Gol.  You got all patched up at the chapel, then?  Zudarra told me everything.  I'm so proud of both of you.  Lots of people in Anvil owe their lives to the two of you.”

 

The room had been picked up since last night, a wooden bin full of broken bits pushed against the wall by the kitchen table, and Zudarra's armor was all laid out up against the wall.  The Khajiit looked over sullenly at him from the bench, tail tucked beneath the cushions.

 

“Yes, Ma'am.  Thank you, Ma'am.”  Saraven bowed.  “In strict justice, that was mostly Zudarra.  She is a terrifying warrior.”  Saraven looked strong and alert, armor and padding free of stains, the bags under his eyes almost gone; they had never been completely gone since he was a young man.  He shut the door behind him as he looked around the room.  The Cathay-raht looked miserable.  If he was any judge she had neither slept nor fed.  Saraven's shoulders heaved in a soundless sigh as he looked at her.  The lines around his eyes deepened for a moment.  It was seldom that he had felt pity for a vampire, and never that he had felt it for Zudarra.  At least it called up no invading memories.  There was nothing for it to trigger.

 

“I wonder if I might borrow your upstairs so that Zudarra can have a look at the buckle on my right greave, Ma'am,” he said.  “I think it may be warped, but I can't quite get a nail under the rim.  A Khajiit's claws would be of some service, and if you'll excuse my mentioning it, I should hate to suddenly lose my trousers here in the kitchen if something should go amiss.”

 

The two women stared at him for a moment, Zudarra's eyebrow shooting up incredulously and Lavinia tightly pressing her lips together to suppress a smile.  She quickly glanced from the Dunmer to her daughter with a knowing twinkle in her cloudy eyes.

 

“Go on ahead,” Lavinia said, nodding and waving a hand up towards the stairs.  She turned around and went back to stirring her porridge.  Zudarra stood stiffly, wondering what this was about.  Maybe he really did need her help, but more likely Saraven had something to tell her in private.

 

Saraven preserved a solemn face under scrutiny, not twitching a muscle.  He went upstairs and slid into the bedroom, glancing around at the gentle clutter of a comfortable life.  It was a strange feeling, twanging bits of him that were long buried and that he had thought dead.  He avoided spaces like this.  He lived a life in Guilds, in caves, in camps and inns, unconstructed or anonymous and impersonal.

 

She followed him to the upstairs bedroom, which opened up on their left.  The bed was a single, a  window over the headboard bathing the room in bright noon light.  The covers were a rumpled mess, thrown to one side when Zudarra got up.  Toward the front of the house was the closed bathroom door.  This room was less cluttered than downstairs, with only one side table by the bed and an armoire against wall opposite the doorway.  Her knees gave her trouble, so Lavinia only came upstairs when she had to.  All of the furniture was in good condition for its age, blue paint just beginning to flake off from some of it. 

 

“Do you really have a warped buckle?” Zudarra asked skeptically, leaning against the wall by the doorway to avoid the light from the window as much as possible.

 

He turned to look at her for a moment.  Zudarra chose the one place in the room that was out of direct sunlight.  Then he unbuckled his baldric and hung it over the doorknob as he pushed the door shut.

 

“No, and I apologize for that.  How much restraint are you able to master right now?  I don't want to upset your mother, but you obviously haven't fed.”

 

The Khajiit's face scrunched in confusion, narrowing her eyes at him.

 

“I am as fully in control of myself as you are,” she said sharply, an obvious lie.  It took considerable self restraint not to pounce on him the moment she knew he was offering himself freely, but Zudarra would rather die than appear needy in front of Saraven.  “And why should you care?  You don't owe me anything.  The city is safe now.”  A sly little smile broke across her face then, and she crossed her arms over her chest as she considered him.  “Could it be that you...  _ enjoyed _ my feeding the other night?  I told you it could be pleasurable, if you let it.”

\--

“No, you're not, I can't trust you for five minutes if I pass out,” he said bluntly.  There were areas where she would lie automatically and with conviction, he was discovering, even if circumstances made her obvious.  “And no, I didn't.  It hurt.  It'll always hurt.  Without your mind control it's just like any other injury.”  He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, the cords of his neck tense, shoulders bent.  “Come on, Zudarra.”

 

_ You didn't protest too much at the time, _ she thought.  She wanted to argue, to force him to answer: why?  But if she did that, Saraven might change his mind and leave, and Zudarra wanted to drink very badly.  

 

Zudarra moved slowly, awkwardly, to sit on his left side.  That stinging sunlight was on her hands and the side of her face again, needles driving into her skin.  She wanted to hurry up and drink, but what was she supposed to do with her hands?  Should she say something before starting?  Zudarra had never fed from a consenting person before.  This wasn't a situation that came up in the etiquette guides. 

 

Vandalion loved her so; if only she told him what she was and asked for his blood, he might have said yes.  But it never occurred to Zudarra that she should ask for what she took.  If Saraven had been anyone else sleeping beside her that night, who did not smell as he smelled, she still would have fed.

 

“Give me your arm,” she said, more gently than usual.  Being fed on from the neck would probably make him feel more vulnerable.  “You can whap me across the nose if you think I'm taking too much -- but I won't.”

 

He pushed back his sleeve and the sleeve of his mail shirt.  The vessels throbbed quite close to the gray surface of his wrist and forearm.  She could hear his heart beating slightly faster as he offered her his arm.  He did not care how it happened.  Either way he was doing something that he had considered anathema, abomination, as little as a month ago.  Either way he was feeding a vampire from his own veins.

 

_ Better me than some unwary soul who's done no wrong.  I can't kill her.  I chose to heal her.  The responsibility is mine. _

 

“Well, we'll see,” he said.

 

She leaned forward, grasping his arm in her hand to steady it as her fangs sank into the softer flesh of his arm's underside, nose nearly against his fresh, clean skin.  She had never fed this way before, but she could feel the throb of his artery and knew just where to bite.  Zudarra was certain that she could do with just a little bit and then stop, but when the hot blood flooded over her tongue she found herself lost in the pleasure.

 

Every hot gulp was divine, every drop of blood inflamed her desire even more.  Her hand clenched on his arm, half-unsheathed claws poking his skin as she instinctively held her prey.

 

Saraven tried to relax as he felt fangs puncture his skin, but it ran contrary to thirty years of entrenched reflexes and instincts.  Without exhaustion, without despair, he had to fight himself not to jerk away.  His body was so taut that it hurt him.  She held on with her claws half-out, and he knew she couldn't help it, was not fully in control.

 

Even from the smaller vessels it did not take long before he began to feel dizzy.  He did not protest.  She would not hear him, and his strength would hardly be sufficient to pry her loose.  So he waited, free hand supporting himself on the rumpled coverlet.  He exhaled as he realized he was holding his breath.  Everything started to relax as the world became fuzzy around the edges. 

 

_ You have to stop, you have to show control! _ Zudarra’s mind screamed at her.

 

_ Just a little more, just a drop more, _ the other half argued.  She yanked her mouth away, growling at herself, still with an iron grip on his arm.  Her nostrils flared as she looked at Saraven with wild, dilated eyes.  She had stopped, but she was so thirsty still.  The sunlight no longer bore into her back, her mind was fully awake as if rested and fed, but still it wasn't enough.

 

It would never be enough.  She hated this thirst.  For a short moment as the feral gaze faded from Zudarra's face and her mask of civility returned, Zudarra hated what she was.  Of course she didn't like relying on others to keep herself alive!  Of course she didn't like being reduced to a snarling animal!  If she had known what this thirst was like... If only someone had warned her...

 

She released his arm with a start, realizing how tightly she held it, and quickly leaned back away from him.  She raised her other hand to heal him and the thick punctures faded quickly under the short burst of blue light.  It was everything she could do not surge forward and lick at the drops that rolled down his arm.

 

He couldn't hold the tension in his muscles by the time she let go.  The small pain from the punctures faded as she healed him.  The weak, floating feeling of blood loss only partly dissipated.

 

“You did let go,” he said distantly.  “I give you that.  Most vampires can't at your age.”

 

He looked paler; weary.  Did she really take so much?  Surely it couldn't have been, as thirsty as Zudarra still felt.

 

The ache was fading slightly as the blood settled in her belly, the pleasure of drinking forgotten.  Every single time she would discover it anew.  The sensation was so intense that she couldn't fully grasp the memory when she wasn't feeding. 

 

As relieved as she now felt to finally be free of the sun's horrible glare, Zudarra hated to be beholden to Saraven.  She hated having to restrain herself.  It was such an uncomfortable feeling, to receive help from another.  An  _ inferior _ .  Zudarra would have to find another slave soon; she couldn't go on like this forever.

 

_ Why not him? _ she suddenly wondered.  That had been her plan all along.  Was she really afraid of Molag Bal's threat?  Yes, she realized.  If Saraven were a thrall, he couldn't think for himself.  He might be able to fight, but not very effectively with her draining his blood on a daily basis.  She had to choose someone useless.  

 

“I still don't understand why you did this,” she said.  “We're no longer of use to each other.”  Even as she said it, cold dread clutched at Zudarra's heart.  What fate awaited her if she didn't work at stopping whatever Dagon was trying to do?

 

“I asked you to get the sigil stone,” he said.  “You did it even though it hurt you badly.”  He stood up, slowly so that he might not fall down again, and moved to take up his baldric.  He felt giddy for a second, forced to pause and lean on the door frame as he regained his equilibrium, but it came back readily enough.  “That has value.  And it should be me rather than some poor soul whose family needs them.  If it all went wrong – well, no one would look for me.”

 

He was disclosing more than he ought again.  _  But where was the harm?  _  He asked himself through the fog.  She could guess from what he had already said that he had no one.  He shut his lips and moved out into the hallway, headed for the stairs.

 

He would have to budget at least another day in Anvil before he moved on to look for the next gate.  That was bad, lives might be lost; but he would not make it to Chorrol or Skingrad if he tried to ride out like this.  Worse things than Zudarra might find him lying in the road if he fell off his horse again.  Assuming he still had a horse.  He could not call to mind clearly whether the stables had still been standing or not.

 

Zudarra watched him leaning weakly against the door, again facing little trickles of emotion she'd rather not acknowledge.  What was it like for him, to willingly feed one of the monsters who had killed his entire family?

 

“I don't kill the people I feed from,” she replied hotly, irritated by his insinuation that she was such an awful beast.  She had killed them accidentally, this was true; but Saraven didn't know that.  He was judging her unfairly.  For some reason she didn't quite understand, Zudarra needed Saraven to see her as something different from the one who had ruined his life.  

 

There was more she wanted to say, but then he was out the door and she couldn't risk her mother hearing.  Zudarra followed him down the steps, this time with alert eyes and perked ears, although her tail still flicked in mild annoyance.  She didn't understand the Dunmer at all.  She didn't understand herself.

 

He did not even attempt to argue with her.  He knew that it probably was true sometimes.  Maybe even most of the time.  She had obviously managed not to kill Vandalion through enough feedings to turn him into a complete idiot, and she had chosen not to take his life even when he was completely helpless.

 

But never?  No.  Every vampire would kill in their first two or three feedings.  It made them easier to track.  After that they might become subtler, but at some point it would happen again.  The idea that there might be vampires who did not kill in their first feedings and were therefore impossible to find did not even occur to him.  If it had, he would have rejected it out of hand.

 

“Did you get your buckle all sorted out, Mr. Gol?” Lavinia asked cheerfully when she heard their footsteps.  She was sitting at the table, scraping out the last spoonful of her porridge.  “And have you eaten?”

 

“Yes, Ma'am, it's all fixed,” he said.  “Thank you, but I've eaten.  I'd better be getting back to the Guild.  There will be a lot to do in these next couple of days.”  He still needed to get to the Waterfront and see if he could get Morvayn's silver.  Assuming the ship had not been burned.  Assuming Morvayn was still alive.  And none of that was going to happen today.  Today he was going to drink water and lie flat.  He had earned a rest, he told himself desperately.  He couldn't ride out again today.  Could not.

 

“Oh, all right.  Take care of yourself.  You're welcome back here any time, you know,” Lavinia said.  She stood, bowed deeply to the Dunmer, and watched as Zudarra showed him out.

 

_ Off to get your gorget, to protect from the likes of me and my kind,  _ Zudarra thought, following Saraven to the door and standing in the annoyingly bright light as he walked down the short stoop.  Even well fed, she always felt a bit weary during a sunny day, as if her body knew she ought to be resting.  It was another annoyance Zudarra wished she had been better informed about before letting herself turn.

 

But her vampiric abilities had proven useful in the arena, quickly granting her local fame and lots of gold to send back to her mother.  She probably owed her survival in the Deadlands to those powers as well.  She had no regrets, Zudarra firmly reminded herself.

 

“See you around, Saraven,” was all she said, even though she wasn't so sure of that, and turned to go inside.  

 

Saraven bowed to Lavinia and raised a hand to Zudarra in farewell.  He felt drained of words on top of the rest of it.  He moved slowly, careful of his balance.  The sun was warm and pleasant as he walked streets that were still nearly empty.  Occasionally his boot crunched on broken glass.  He cured himself as soon as he was out of sight of the house, just in case.  The last thing he needed was to contract porphyric hemophilia.

 

The daedric carcasses were gone now, gradually evaporated as the souls they had contained fled back through the waters of Oblivion.  They had left strange stains and silhouettes behind: the outline of an arm, a tail, a toothy muzzle.  It only made all of it more surreal as he walked on through a world gone soft and vague.  His head ached a little.  That was probably a bad sign.

 

_ And you don't even know that it was enough for her.  She's larger than most Khajiit.  _  He would not be able to do it again for days, and she would be hungry again before that.  She was hungry often, or she would not have been hauling Vandalion around with her on his own horse, with his own gear.  Of course, he did not know if the Altmer had been enough, either, or how long she normally kept a thrall.  Was it until they died?  Or did she let them turn, loose another bottomless thirst on the world?  

 

He was leaning against the front of a building without being entirely sure how he had come there.  Saraven looked around.  The black-on-red banner of the Fighters Guild hung from the high stone front.  As he looked at it the door opened and a Nord came out, a big blond woman with a steel greataxe strapped to the back of her iron cuirass.

 

“Are you lost?” she asked him.

 

“No, I'm a member,” he said, and blundered his way past her into the darker interior.  There were a couple of people in the practice room, working on repairing their armor.  One was a Redguard in light leather armor and one looked to be an Imperial, with the sturdy form and brown hair and beaky nose characteristic of that race.  The hammers made a hard, regular sound that echoed around the stone walls.  Three more people were asleep in the beds, including an Altmer with a little golden goatee who seemed vaguely familiar, but the bunk he had used yesterday was still free.  He hauled off his boots, undid his baldric and shrugged out of his mithral chain shirt to drop it into the chest at the end of the bed.  He lay down in his padding, facing into the room with the sword resting on his palm, fingers curled loosely around the hilt.

 

For a long time he drifted in and out of sleep.  He was not sure how long.  He was ultimately awakened by a weight settling onto the bed beside him.  His eyes flew open as his hand closed around the hilt of the sword, other hand reaching out to brace the scabbard.

 

The Altmer with the blond goatee sat on the edge of the bed.  He had short blond hair as well, nearly the same color as his golden skin, and his eyes were almost orange.  He was out of armor completely, wearing a loose linen shirt and trousers.  Now he raised a placating hand.

 

“Easy, old fellow.  Are you all right?”

 

Saraven squinted at him, dredging up a name.  “Arallon,” he said.  “Bruma?  Six years?”

 

“That's right.  And what an afternoon that was.”  He grinned.  “I haven't seen Clara since then, mind, have you?”

 

“Once, in the Imperial City,” Saraven said.  He rolled onto his back and set up, then paused to lean on his hands while he waited for the head rush to clear.  “I'm not up for fun and games today.”

 

“I should say not.  You're looking a bit ghostly, if you'll excuse my mentioning it.”  He tilted his head, looking the other mer over.  “I hope you got the vampire in the end?  Are you still hunting?”

 

Saraven grunted noncommittally.  “Other work to do now.”

 

“Oh yes, I did hear that you were there at the gate.  You and Zudarra the Bloody – is that really what she's called?”

 

“Yep.  Used to fight in the Arena.”

 

“So she's not a guildmate,” Arallon said.  There was a questioning air to his tone.

 

Saraven shrugged.  “I've never asked.”

 

“How'd you ever meet?”

 

“You're asking a lot of questions, Arallon.”  He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for his boots.  The Altmer stood up sinuously to give him space.

 

“Well, I admit to curiosity.  She seems like such a... dramatic figure.”

 

Saraven snorted.  “She's a one-Khajiit army.  We were both captured in Kvatch, woke up in cages in a dremora fortress next to each other.  We fought our way out, closed the gate more or less by accident, and then we came down here so she could see her mother and it just...”  He shrugged again.  “I don't imagine we'll see one another again.”

 

“Mm.  What are you doing the rest of today?”

 

“Like I said, not fun and games.”  He got up to get his chain shirt.  “Just an errand for a smith.”

 

“Is there anything you need?” the Altmer asked.  “Food, water, a new spell?”

 

The mention of food produced an embarrassing growl from his stomach.  Saraven tugged the chain shirt into place over his head and turned to eye the Altmer.  There was a good six inches' difference in their heights.  “What's this about, really?  We only met the one time.”  He remembered that afternoon with enjoyment, but he had not expected to really see the Altmer again.

 

“I don't think you realize how important this is,” Arallon said, gesturing with one long-fingered hand.  “So far the only people to go into a gate to the Deadlands and close it are you, Zudarra the Bloody, and that Argonian from Kvatch – Got-No-Home, I think they call him.  And you're here in the Guild looking like death warmed over.  That's not right, my friend.”

 

“I don't need recognition.  I can get food upstairs.  If you really want to help me, I could use a lightning spell, though.  Fireball doesn't do much to dremora.”  He buckled on his baldric as he spoke.

 

“Shouldn't think so,” Arallon agreed.  “I could lend you the book I got mine from.  You'll probably pick it up fast enough.  Is that really all you want?”

 

Saraven nodded.  “I'd be obliged to you.”

 

“Very well.  I'll get it.”

 

Arallon brought him the book and left him with it as he trudged upstairs to find lunch.  He read as he ate.  It would take some work to pick up a spell this way, but at least it cost him nothing.  After he had eaten and drunk he started the long walk out to the Waterfront.  The ship was there all right, its crew rattled enough that they gave him exactly what he asked for, and it proved to be a dull, sweaty, but entirely successful trip back to Morvayn's Peacemakers hauling the cask of silver on one shoulder.

 

Morvayn was still standing.  He had even gotten nearly everything back onto the shelves.  He turned from putting a steel helmet back into its assigned place when he heard the broken door pushed aside.

 

“Glad to see you made it,” he said.  “I was wondering if I'd see you today.”

 

“You too.  Here.”  Saraven set the cask on the counter with a solid chunk.  “I expect you haven't gotten to the gorget yet, with everything that's happened?”

 

“On the contrary.  There's been no other business today, what with nearly everyone still holed up in the Castle or out on the Waterfront.  My apprentice is still out there, in fact.”  He rummaged under the counter and came up with the gorget and bracers.  “They'll be a bit stiff until they're broken in, mind.”

 

“Thank you.”  Morvayn watched him lace himself into the leather pieces.

 

“I heard your friend closed the gate to Oblivion,” he said.

 

“Don't know that we're friends, but yes, she did.”

 

“Maybe you should find someone else to feed her,” Morvayn said, switching to Dunmeris even though there was no one else in hearing.

 

“All right, all right,” Saraven said.  “But I don't expect I'll see her again in any case.”  He tightened the neck-laces and tucked them into the top of the gorget.  “Thank you for this.”

 

“Good luck, Serjo Gol.”

 

“Serjo Morvayn,” Saraven said, and bowed.

 

He washed up behind the Guild and spent the evening resting and studying.  By the time the sun went down he thought he had a decent grasp on the concepts of the lightning spell, so he went out back to practice.  It took another two hours to actually succeed in casting it, and by then he was starting to feel dizzy again.  He gave the book back to Arallon, thanked him, and went to bed.


	8. Chapter 8

Her deeds had value, he'd said.  It was the first time he showed her the barest hint of respect, and she didn't acknowledge or thank him for it.  She didn't thank him for feeding her.  Half of Zudarra wondered why, but the other half brushed that useless thought away.  He fed her because he wanted to, because it fueled his hero complex to imagine he was saving some poor lost soul who might fall under her fangs instead.  He ought to thank  _ her _ for helping to give purpose to his empty life.

 

For Zudarra, the rest of the day was quite busy.  She helped her mother with a slew of chores that she wasn't able to normally do by herself, pinned cloth over the windows until the glass could be replaced, and made runs into town for various reasons so she could have a meal alibi when Lavinia cooked.  Some neighbors came to check on Lavinia; the townsfolk were beginning to trickle back to their homes.  People wept in the streets for those who did not return.  The shadows of guards moved constantly along the wall, ever vigilant for another attack.

 

It was later in the day when the survivors of Valenwood began to arrive in the Anvil harbor, first the large merchant ships followed by smaller fishers.  Falinesti had fallen shortly after Kvatch.  The Bosmer assumed the attacks were local to Valenwood, just as most Cyrodiilians assumed the attacks were local to Cyrodiil.

 

Zudarra heard the news from one of Lavinia's neighbors; word was spreading quickly throughout town.  (And she was earning quite a reputation herself, after Lavinia told a few people of Zudarra's heroic deeds.)  Last night's jubilation gave way to an oppressive gloom as the dead were tallied and people began to realize the scale of the attack.  Being so close to the harbor gate, Zudarra could sit on the stoop and watch guards directing the mostly Bosmeri refugees to the chapel or the castle.  Most of them had a glazed look in their eyes, following the orders like docile little sheep.

 

At sunset, Zudarra told Lavinia that she was going for a run and headed down to the harbor.  Magnus was a flaming ball on the horizon, reminiscent of the fiery eye of the daedric siege machine.  The Abecean Sea sparkled purple and gold below it.  She walked West along the beach, away from the harbor, until the sand gave way to pebbles and short grass.  Gulls cried and circled above, oblivious to the upheaval their world had been thrown into.  The ambling mudcrabs and the cool, salty breeze remained unchanged.  Perhaps Nirn would get along just fine without them if Dagon succeeded in wiping all their cities off the maps.

 

As the sun was blinking out, dying red embers over a lake of blood, Zudarra found exactly what she'd been hoping to find.  A Bosmer was sitting on a short, flat rock at the water's edge, staring numbly at the waves that lapped against his seat with his knees drawn up near his chin, hands clasped in front of his legs.  He wore tanned hide pants and vest over a green woolen shirt, and Zudarra could smell the fish blood that stained his clothes from ten feet away.  His only acknowledgment of her was a quick glance to the side and then he was back watching the water.  She could only tell that his large black eyes had moved by the shifting reflection of the sunset.

 

“Do you mind if I join you?” Zudarra asked.  The Bosmer looked up at her then, giving her his full attention.  He had a round little face and a stubby nose that pointed up at the end.  His dirty-blonde hair was a matted mass of long dreadlocks that didn't smell much better than his clothes.  He didn't seem particularly sad, but rather like one who'd been dead inside for years.

 

“I don't suppose it matters,” he said dully, in a voice less nasally than most of his brethren, and looked away again.  Zudarra sat down on the same wide rock, with enough space between them to be comfortable.  She looked out on the water, enjoying the breeze that ruffled her fur.

 

“I'll cut to the chase,” Zudarra said.  “I know you've been through a lot today, but I'm about to make all of that go away.”  The man beside her harrumphed, dumbfounded by the rudeness of this Khajiit but also curious what she was on about.  He didn't have time to struggle before she was on him, her hand cradling his head like a lover and her mouth on his throat.

 

Her mind touched his as her fangs sank into unwashed flesh.  She felt the hurt, the pain.  She couldn't see all the specifics, but she didn't need to.  This mer was utterly alone.  His entire life had been destroyed in a single night, with no purpose or reason to keep on living.  Zudarra would give him one.

 

He quickly relaxed in her arms, falling into a stupor as she fed.  She felt some resistance initially, but that faded away as she wormed her will into his mind, rewarding his submission with pleasure.  He wasn't like Vandalion, stupid and passive, but in time he would be.  His blood was not the great prize Saraven's was, but it was an enjoyable meal.  It wasn't so hard to pry herself away.

 

The Bosmer lay limp her arms, black eyes staring at Zudarra with only slight confusion, face slack and serene.  His wounds healed in a flash of blue and Zudarra released him.  He sagged back against the rock, catching himself with his elbows.

 

“Your name is Galmir, isn't it?” she asked.  He nodded faintly.  “I'm Zudarra.  I think you ought to get to the Anvil castle with the other survivors.  Eat, sleep, take good care of yourself.  And by the Divines, next time you see a pair of shears, cut that mop off, would you?” 

 

“Maybe I'll do that, Zudarra,” he said dreamily.  She nodded and stood.  

 

“You should come back to this spot tomorrow at sunset,” Zudarra said as she turned to leave.  He might not obey that order.  He might forget this had ever happened, or be confused about what he remembered.  It often took several feedings and mesmerizings to break them in.  But if he didn't show up, she would just go to the castle and fetch him.  It's not like he had anyplace else to go.

 

Zudarra was pleased with herself as she jogged home, bouncing on her toes with every step.  She knew Saraven only fed her specifically to avoid what had just happened, but he was a fool if he thought he could prevent her from ever taking another thrall.  Saraven couldn't feed her every day of their lives without becoming weak like cattle himself.

 

She busied herself with arms practice and exercises throughout the night, after making a bed on the floor to convince Lavinia she was actually sleeping.  Again her thoughts turned to Molag Bal, and to worries for her future.  The more she thought of it, the more she realized she had no choice but to do as the Prince instructed.  It made her sick to think of herself as a pawn of the Daedra, but the horror of eternal torture was worse.  Somehow, someway, she had to find a way out of Bal's trap.

 

She decided to pay a visit to the Fighter's Guild when the sun rose.

 

* * *

 

 

Kahzarku floated in nothingness, blind and deaf and numb.   He thought he knew the way, but it had been so long ago -- it had been the First Era, by mortal reckoning, when last he died.

 

Eons seemed to pass before his consciousness brushed against another, something overwhelmingly large in the sea of nothing.  It laughed and quaked in jubilation and screamed in angry confusion all at once.  Kahzarku turned away, unsure how he knew how to move in a place where he could feel no momentum or spatial awareness, but the thing that had nearly absorbed him eventually faded away.

 

He traveled again for an endless time, unsure if he really moved at all, until thirst and lust bled into his mind, an overwhelming greed for all the pleasures of sixteen and one worlds.  This, too, was some invisible object of unfathomable mass that threatened to swallow him up.  It was tempting, but still wrong.  

 

Kahzarku was very weary now, and the thought of spending any more time in this expanse of nothingness brought him great dread.  But he would not stray from his destined path.  He continued through the unbearable void, brushing against these titanic bubbles of emotion and thought, resisting them all until at last he found his home.

 

_ Power.  Bloodlust.  Rage. _

 

These were things Kahzarku could understand.  He pressed forward, felt sensation and time return as he merged with the titan in the dark.  The brand of Mehrunes Dagon burned into his soul with a white-hot pain and then Kahzarku felt himself expand explosively, nerves growing like roots through a new body that slowly began to feel other things.  Pressure, warmth, wetness, a darkness on his open eyes that stabbed like the light of Magnus.

 

He screamed, inhaling blood into his lungs.

 

Kahzarku flailed his body, desperately kicking and clawing for the surface.  Black faded to dark red and he burst into the hot air of the Deadlands, gasping to fill his burning lungs with air.  All around him were others, dremora and lesser daedra, all gasping and wailing as they struggled to swim for the shore.  His untested muscles ached as he swam, but eventually his kicking feet sank into soft ground.

 

Kahzarku hauled his naked body onto the shore with trembling arms, coughing blood onto the red sand, and finally collapsed onto his chest when he could breathe.  Part of him wanted to rest there forever, to bask in the warmth and let the screams of his kin lull him into a restful trance, but there was no time.  He pushed himself up onto weak legs and stumbled forward.  Others scrambled past him now, some crawling over the sand and some already standing.

 

A line of red-robed dremora stood waiting at the top of the slope where sand gave way to dirt and gravel, the watchers of the rebirthing.  Kahzarku staggered to the nearest one, dropping to his knees before her with eyes at her feet.

 

“What of Ganonah?” he croaked.

 

“Destroyed,” she replied.  Kahzarku howled his rage, flinging himself forward to pound his fists on the ground.

 

“Stand, wretch!  Carry on and prove to Lord Dagon that one bested by a mortal deserves to keep his soul, if you are able,” the watcher sneered, stepping forward and twisting to plant a boot on Kahzarku's back, knocking him flat.  He picked himself up without turning to look at her and walked up the slope, joining the mass of bodies dripping blood on the arid land.  

 

The towers of Jurn stood tall in the distance, miles away.  There was no time to waste.

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra glanced dubiously up at the great square block that was the Anvil Fighters Guild.  The white stone glowed bright under the mid-morning sun.  With it's half-domed roof and dramatic spires it seemed like a miniature version of the castle, dwarfed only by the chapel on the street behind it.  She felt something like a fox sauntering into a kennel of hounds as she mounted the steps to the broad double doors below the fluttering red banners.  One of them was singed at the bottom from the attack.

 

Two humans stood in the practice room, an Imperial and a Nord armored in steel and iron, respectively.  Zudarra herself was in her own freshly polished mail once again, the baldric carrying her daedric greatsword slung across her chest and her leather bag over her shoulder.  It was significantly lighter than it had been; most of the gold she left with Lavinia.  

 

Zudarra didn't get a chance to hear what they were discussing.  The humans immediately turned and stared at her in a less than friendly manner.  She might be able to fool the common idiot, but experienced fighters most likely knew a Khajiiti vampire when they saw one.

 

“I'm looking for Saraven Gol.  Dunmer, mithral armor, dreary mug that hasn't smiled in fifty years.”  She spoke before they could.  The Nord's eyes narrowed in a glare, then widened in recognition as her eyes passed from the weapon and back to the Khajiit's face.

 

“Are you Zudarra... the Bloody?  Is that really a name?” she asked.

 

“It's an arena stage name, and yes, that's me.  Is he here or not?”

 

The two exchanged glances, apparently weighing her service to the city against her status as an abomination.

 

“He is here, but non-Guild members aren't allowed in the barracks.  You'll have to wait out here,” the Imperial said.  Zudarra considered shoving past them anyway, but it wouldn't help Saraven's opinion of her to cause a scene in his guildhall.  She took a seat on the bench by the door, staring with disinterest at the room.  It creaked under her weight.  She could see people through the open doorway to the barracks, some sleeping and some dressing, looking at her with curiosity.

 

The Imperial went inside while the Nord continued to watch her.  He didn't know Gol personally, but knew him from Zudarra's description and the tales that were circulating.  He found the Dunmer asleep in the last bed of the row.

 

“Excuse me, Saraven Gol?  I'm sorry to wake you, but a Khajiit called Zudarra the Bloody has come asking for you.”  

 

Saraven opened his eyes, hand closing around his sword, and stared up at the Imperial as his brain parsed out meaning from the words.  All was right with the world again.  He felt stiff leather against his throat and wrists, the status quo restored.  It took him several seconds to remember everything that had happened between when he'd lost them and when he'd got the new set.

 

“Zudarra,” he said blankly.  “Is here.”

 

The Imperial nodded.

 

“I'll be right out.  Thanks for your trouble.”  Saraven scrambled into his mail as his guildmate grunted and turned to go back out.  He felt rested and alert, and a glimpse of himself in a panel of his boots showed some of his color already returning.  He hauled the edges of the gorget out over the top of the mithral chain shirt's collar, tugged its hems down over the bracers, and buckled on the baldric that held up his longsword.  A separate belt of plain leather held his purse on and kept his mail shirt cinched at the waist.  He ran his palms over his white hair, but it had not changed in its basic configuration in decades and was not about to start for something as mundane as being slept on.

 

He emerged from the sleeping quarters with the same rapid and unassuming stride he generally used: carry on about your business, nothing important is happening here.  Zudarra was sitting on a bench by the door, causing it to bow in the middle under the weight of Cathay-raht and armor.  Well, she was looking well-fed and pert enough.

 

More so than when he'd last seen her.

 

_ Damn my eyes. _

 

Zudarra looked up at Saraven when he entered, her face neutral.  She didn't bother to stand.  The Nord woman moved off, eyeing Zudarra as she left.

 

“Good morning, Zudarra,” he said quietly.

 

“Good morning.  I take it you plan to keep on closing the gates that pop up, am I right?  If so, I'd like to join you.”  Her tone was very serious, without the usual mocking or irritated edge it often carried when speaking to him.  

 

"Yes, I do, and why?"  He folded his arms as he looked at her.  "You haven't a lot to gain by it.  I can't believe you'd do it as a public service."

 

“I'm not.  There's no reason to assume the daedra won't come back to Anvil.  And if they destroy the entire province, what would happen to my mother?  What would happen to me?  I can't make a name for myself in the arena if the Imperial City is obliterated.”  She sighed, and it was the first time anything close to sadness passed over her face.  “I don't want to get sucked into this, but,” she lowered her voice then.  “Immortality isn't worth much if you've got nothing to live for.”

 

Saraven stared at her for a long moment, red-on-red eyes narrow.  Most of her obvious lies were told when she was angry, defensive.  He did not believe in her ability to deceive him in cold blood.

 

"Well done," he said at last.  "Will you be bringing your new thrall with you?"

 

Her face instantly crumpled in fury and her eyes darted around to see if anyone had heard his comment before returning to glare at him.

 

“Yes, I will, and I was going to tell you about him,” she growled quietly, leaning forward in her seat.  “You know as well as I do that you can't feed me forever.  Isn't the life of this one mer worth all the others I'll help save?”

 

“Fortunately I am not the one who has to make that choice,” Saraven said.  He was speaking quietly, and the Imperial behind them was too occupied with the practice dummy and the noise of his own weapon to pay them the slightest attention.  “Because I'm a coward, and even if I were willing to die to feed you, you'd still have to find someone else afterward.  Did you ask him at all?  Did he have the slightest say in this?”

 

He had told an untruth.  He might be unwilling at this moment, but how much he cared would vary up and down, day by day.  He had no control over that.

 

It shocked Zudarra to hear Saraven speak of himself that way, but she was too annoyed with the rest of his words to dwell on that further.

 

“It is a choice you have to make,” Zudarra snapped, still keeping her voice low despite the noise.  “You could scream 'vampire' and attack me on the spot and all your little guildmates would back you up and I'd be dead and my thrall would be free.  You chose inaction.  You've let me live all this time because you know you need me.”  She rose to her feet with a clank so she could glare down at Saraven from her full height, arms bowed to broaden her shoulders.

 

“And of course he had no say!  I didn't have time to visit the matchmaker and find a man who wanted to be a thrall.  If my ways bother you so much, then be my guest; go it alone.  You know where to find me.”  She whirled around and stalked towards the door.

 

“That's not why,” he said quietly, to her back.  “First it was because I couldn't, and then it was because I trusted you.  That was foolish, but it's the truth.  It's why I didn't say anything, that first time.  I didn't believe you would do it, and when you did, it broke me."

 

Zudarra's ear twitched, fist clenched on the door handle.  She stopped moving, but didn't turn back.

 

“You can still trust me,” she said, and for the first time, it was the truth.  She'd been lying to him all along; planning to enthrall him or kill him whenever the opportunity arose.  But not now.  Even if he watched her walk away and never agreed to help her close the gates, Zudarra was stunned by the realization that she no longer desired to harm him.  She didn't  _ like _ him, but he was a strong warrior who had saved her life on more than one occasion.  

 

And... he once trusted her?

 

Something twisted in Zudarra's stomach.  She turned her face to the side, looking at him from her peripheral vision.

 

“I didn't mean to touch you that night,” she said stiffly.  It was difficult for her to say.  “There's something strange about you -- I can't explain it.  Your smell, your blood.  It's magnetic.  I..,” she had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could continue. “I lost control.”

 

Her hand fell away from the door and she turned to him fully, now.  The muscles of her face were tense under her mask of steel, but for a split second she seemed lost in confusion.  Zudarra didn't know why she would admit that to Saraven of all people, the one who already judged her as a mindless beast.

 

“You can trust me that I won't harm you on purpose.  But you know what I am.  I'm not sorry for that.  This is the best I can do.”

 

Saraven stared at her, eyes widening slightly.   _ There's something strange about you.  _  Good Gods, it explained so much.  Vampires had come after him in stupid ways, in stupid places, undeterred by sunlight or his armor or even his leathers.  It had seemed strange when the older ones were usually such calculating hunters.  It must have been that way for years, decades!  And what in the world was wrong with him?  Some sort of curse, some spell?

 

But that was not the important point.  The important thing was that Zudarra had admitted fault, admitted weakness, done something that he had to this point believed to be impossible for her.  His face relaxed as he looked at her, lines smoothing out slightly around his eyes and mouth.

 

“Thank you,” he said at last.  “I understand.  For what it's worth, I'm sorry things are that way.  I didn't know.”

 

She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted on her feet, suddenly feeling very awkward, and forced a short chuckle.

 

“I thought you would think I was making excuses,” she said, the slightest hint of a smirk crawling over her muzzle.

 

“When you're making excuses you talk with your ears flat,” he said.  “You haven't learned to lie with your face yet.  It takes a long time.  Do you still want to come with me?  I'm riding out for Skingrad next.”  He looked at the ceiling.  “You know.  When you're ready.”

 

Zudarra digested that tidbit for a moment, and for once, she didn't get angry.  She snorted in real laughter.

 

“You're what, a hundred years old?  I guess you know a few things I don't,” she said teasingly.  “I'll meet you at the stables in an hour, unless you have more business here?  I have to collect the third member of our party.”  The mirth faded and she grew serious again.  “I know you don't like that, but I'm not going to hurt him.  He might be safer with me than anyplace else in Tamriel right now.”

 

“Eighty-three,” he said dryly.  “Hour's fine.  And no, I don't like it, but I'm not going to stop you.  At least tell me he didn't have a family?”

 

“Not anymore,” Zudarra said carefully.  Her first impulse was to be flippant about it -- It was a sad thing, sure, but Zudarra didn't know the people and it wasn't something she could ever change -- but Saraven had lost his entire family, and he had made comments about protecting families and children in the past.  He probably didn't want anyone else to suffer what he had.  “He just arrived with the other refugees from Valenwood.  They died in Falinesti.”

 

Saraven actually seemed to relax further as he nodded.

 

“Then you're not making things any worse for him,” he said.  “Better, arguably.”  He squinted as he said it, because it tied a knot in his guts to admit a vampire taking someone as a thrall could ever be anything but unequivocally evil.  “Try and let him know he'll be helping you hurt Dagon, if you can.  It'll make him happier while he's still able to think at all.”

 

_ He can think, _ Zudarra thought.  _  In fact he'll be doing an annoying amount of thinking and talking in the coming week before it winds down, if he's anything like Vandalion.   _ That was best not to say to Saraven, though.

 

“I will,” was all she said, and turned again to leave.  “See you soon.”

 

She'd already said her goodbyes to Lavinia that morning, but promised to check in as soon as she could.  No matter what else happened, defending Anvil would always be Zudarra's number one priority.

 

Her next stop was the castle.  The island and the palace were crawling with guards and armed volunteers, so no one looked twice at the armored Cathay-raht who strolled in through the open door.  Tables had been set up in the main entry and a crowd of people were milling about, mostly Bosmer.  A guard directed her to the servant's sleeping quarters when she asked where the refugees were being temporarily put up.

 

That room was packed and noisy.  It was a long room with a row of beds against either wall, and it seemed that every bed was full-- no one was sleeping at this hour, but they were occupied with people sitting or strewn with belongings as people took stock of what little they had left to them.  Bedrolls and extra blankets were clustered all over the floor between beds and down the main aisle.  Zudarra's ears flattened at the din of crying infants and emotionally charged conversation.  A pair of children shrieked past her, banging against her thigh, and Zudarra stifled a growl.

 

She found Galmir sitting alone on a bed, ignoring the rabble around him.  He'd cut his hair shorter, leaving shaggy waves that didn't go past his ears.  It still needed a good washing, and he was dressed in his stinking clothes from last night, but at least those long dreadlocks wouldn't get in her face if Zudarra drank from his neck.  The Bosmer was staring at some little object in his hand.  He looked up when Zudarra's shadow fell across it.  She saw that it was a chain with a silver pendant in the shape of a tree, the roots branching out as majestically as the boughs.

 

The mer's hand closed around it as he looked up, forehead wrinkling in confusion.

 

“It's... Zudarra, right?  Have we met?”

 

“We met last night,” Zudarra said.  Her voice was calmer than she felt.  It had been a long time since she enthralled a new person, and she hoped he'd obey without much fuss.  But when she looked into his eyes and felt for his mind, there was no effort to defend.  It was like kicking down a sand castle.  Everything he was laid bare before her, ready for the taking.  Again she felt his anguish, his sorrow, his confusion.  She pushed those emotions aside and told him: S _ erve me, and be at peace.  You belong to me now.  My happiness will be yours. _ Galmir's shoulders slowly slumped, the lines of his face smoothing as he accepted her commands.  

 

“Do you have any possessions with you?” she asked.

 

“I have a bag under the bed,” he replied, then opened his palm to look sadly at the necklace.  “And this.  I was going to give this to Mileth, but now I'll never get the chance.  Sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this.  I just feel like we've known each other for so long.  Like I could trust you.”

 

The Khajiit bent to pull a small leather shoulder bag from under the bed, barely listening to his rambling.  There wasn't much inside; an empty flask that had once held mead, another flask of water, a couple gold coins.  She handed the bag to him.

 

“Take this.  It's time for us to go now, Galmir.”

 

“Oh,” he said, returning to his perplexed expression.  He knew that she was right, even if he didn't know why or where they were going.  “I suppose it is.”  He stood up and followed her out, pendant still in his fist.

 

With the walk to and from the castle, it was just about an hour later when Zudarra arrived outside the stables.  It hadn't burned at all.  The daedra had been too focused on trying to get through the main gate, and then dealing with guards once they did.  She instructed Galmir to wait on a bench outside while she saddled her horse. 

 

* * *

 

 

Saraven got a canvas bag from the bottom of a food cupboard and filled it with as much as he felt would reasonably fit in a saddlebag.  He spent most of his pathetic few septims buying a water skin off another guild member and filled it at the pump behind the Guild.  He tried his lightning spell one more time while he was back there.  It worked.  Electricity now roiled beneath his skin, readily ignored but always there.  He wondered if it was ever confusing for the real mages, with more and powerful spells.  Perhaps they experienced it differently.

 

For a wonder, the stables were still standing.  Ves came up to the fence at his whistle, snorfling at his new gorget.  He accepted a carrot delicately and was more than happy to come into the stable to be curried.  The ostler had done it at least once, but it was a relaxing thing for both rider and horse to do it again.  The black gelding stood with his eyes half-closed, ears forward, as Saraven ran the curry-comb over his short hair and straightened out his mane and tail.  His stifles were ticklish, but Saraven knew to go carefully around that area; he'd never had Ves try to kick him.  He checked the horse's hooves, but it looked as though they had been groomed that day, so he let them be.  His shoes were still in good condition.

 

When he thought the time must be growing shorter he went to pack his food into the saddlebag and get the saddle ready.  He waited until he saw Zudarra coming to saddle up the black horse.  The Bosmer waited on a bench outside the stable while she did it.

 

“My name's Saraven Gol,” he said presently, from Ves's back.  The horse nickered a greeting.

 

Galmir looked over at the Dunmer.  He was calm, but much more alert than Vandalion had been.

 

“Hello.  The name's Galmir, and that's Zudarra.  How d'ya do?”

 

“Could be worse,” Saraven said.

 

Zudarra had stopped to buy two bedrolls and a few potions of cure disease.  It was easy enough to hop over to the alchemist and pick up a potion when her thrall ended up with a fever, but Skingrad might be a smoking pile of rubble by now for all they knew.  Likewise, she couldn't count on finding inns to sleep in anymore.

 

She tied the bedrolls in front of the saddle horn and led Shadow out to where Galmir sat, his heavy hooves kicking up dust on the dirt.  The silver chain was still hanging from the mer's closed fist.

 

“Saraven is coming with us.  We're going to close the gates that Mehrunes Dagon is opening up all over Tamriel.  Put that away in your bag and come on, you're riding Shadow.”  She jerked her head toward the horse, who was reaching out with his bulky black head to snuffle at the stranger.  Unfortunately, she no longer had the gold left to buy another mount.

 

Galmir's shiny black eyes opened wide and he stared in disbelief at the Khajiit even as he tucked the necklace into the bag that hung at his side.

 

“Oh no ma'am, I've never ridden a horse before.  ...Did you say Mehrunes Dagon was responsible for all this?”

 

“Yes he is, and yes you are.  Relax, you'll be fine.”  Zudarra picked the little elf up by the armpits and swung him up to the horse like he was a cloth doll, his legs kicking comically in the air before she plopped him behind the saddle.  “Now hang onto the back of the saddle, and watch your fingers because I'm coming up next.”  The Bosmer gave a little yelp when the saddle rocked to the side as Zudarra pulled herself up with the stirrup and settled heavily into the creaking seat.  Galmir clutched Zudarra's sides, legs hanging uncomfortably over the saddle bags and looking like he was about to piss himself with fear.  He trusted Zudarra, but that didn't mean he trusted her hulking beast. 

 

Zudarra stifled a growl at being touched by the grubby little elf.  There wasn't any other way.

Saraven looked the Bosmer over grimly.  She hadn't taken time to have the mer wash up, and he looked a pathetic waif to a member of a larger species.  He was absolutely certain he did not want to know the story of the necklace Galmir had been clutching.  His gut twisted at any speculation.  Still, the Bosmer held onto Zudarra readily enough, seemingly without fear of her.  At least he was not suffering.  Or would not be once he got over his fear of the enormous horse.

 

“Don't worry,” he said.  “That's a good horse.  As soon fall off a table.”

 

“That's good to know,” Galmir said, looking sideways at Saraven with his cheek pressed against Zudarra's back.  “I wouldn't know a good horse from a bad horse.  Not many of these where I'm from.  But this one certainly seems large.”

 

“I'm a large Khajiit,” Zudarra said dryly, setting Shadow on course to the main road.  She was kind enough not to break into a faster gait straight away, to give Galmir a chance to adjust.

 

Galmir did adjust, and after some initial chitchat he grew quiet, watching the scenery pass with the same thousand-mile stare he'd been using on the ocean when Zudarra first met him.  He didn't really understand what was happening, but he knew anything Zudarra wanted must be right.  After an hour his fingers cramped from hanging onto the Khajiit, but he didn't dare let go.

 

He missed Mileth.  Galmir turned his face away from Saraven so the Dunmer wouldn't happen to see the silent tears in his eyes.  Zudarra heard him snorting snot back into his nose a couple times and didn't say anything, although she was thoroughly disgusted to have a snotty-nosed, weepy Bosmer with his face against her armor.

 

Saraven was aware of the Bosmer weeping, but he left the mer to himself, trying to allow him some dignity.  His life was going to be undignified enough from this point on. 

 

It would be a two day ride to Skingrad.  They took breaks to eat and stretch, and sometimes Zudarra walked beside the horse, or let Galmir walk when he started to cramp.  Saraven walked his horse beside Zudarra periodically, letting the black get used to Galmir's unfamiliar scent as well as stretching his own legs.  They didn't see a single guard on the road all day, and travelers were few.  They made camp near Kvatch that night, away from the road.  The walls could be seen in the distance, high on the hill over the surrounding forest.  

 

He spoke with Galmir a little as they ate, letting the Bosmer do a lot of the talking.  The man was still a living being, with all of a living being's needs, and Saraven would not be cruel to him even if his life was more or less over.  He remembered how much small kindnesses had meant to him a long time ago, in the first agonies of a grief and desolation that would stretch on for years to come.

 

After the mortals had their dinner, Zudarra stripped off her armor and sat beside Galmir on his bedroll.  He didn't seem to mind the invasion of his personal space.  

 

“Turn away if you don't want to see,” she said to Saraven.  Galmir relaxed under her touch, sighing pleasantly as her fangs pierced his neck.  She drank a modest amount, all the while repeating in their shared mind for Galmir to let go of his sadness and embrace servitude.  

 

Saraven did not immediately turn his face away from Zudarra feeding.  He wanted to see that Galmir was not in pain, as he had been in pain, but the Bosmer plainly mounted no resistance at all to her mental domination.  His face was almost beautific, suffused with joy and relaxation.  Saraven watched for a moment, making sure.  Then he got up to hunt for kindling, to feed the fire and check on Ves again before he laid out his bedroll.  He slept in his gorget and bracers.  Even if he could entirely trust Zudarra now, he had done so for years, and he felt more comfortable with them on even if the stiff leather itself was not what most people would consider comfortable.

 

Galmir fell asleep easily that night, paler but with a happy smile.


	9. Chapter 9

Saraven’s heart sank as he recognized the swirl of black and crimson over Skingrad the next day.  It was close to noon when they spotted the mass of black clouds on the horizon.  Red lightning crackled as they drew closer, and soon the thunderhead was over their own heads, blotting out the sun and casting the world in eerie red light.  The coverage of the forest grew sparser and sparser, and soon they came to the valley full of pastures and farmland that sprawled across the countryside outside the city proper.

 

The party stopped dead in their tracks at the top of a modest hill after they'd cleared the woods.  The farms in the valley below were nothing more than black scorches on the earth.  The charred skeletons of houses dotted the landscape, some of them still smoking.  The Western wall had fallen near the main gate, leaving behind a great pile of stone rubble.  Beyond the wall was a trail of destruction where a siege engine had come through, tearing down anything in its path.

 

The gate to the Deadlands was still open just outside the ruined wall, a cluster of strange buildings around it.  Zudarra's first impression was that they were tents; like yurts, but taller and conical.  A familiar veiny red membrane stretched across bonelike protrusions that grew from the ground.  One panel was left skinless from the midpoint to the ground, a doorway that they watched armored dremora enter or exit.  Every now and then a dremora came carrying a screaming prisoner to one of these tents, or into the portal.  Broken mortal bodies were littered throughout the camp.  The dirt road that led from the city was stained red with blood.

 

Galmir hadn't seen the sight yet.  His view was blocked by Zudarra's enormous back.  The Khajiit looked aside at Saraven.

 

“Late,” he growled under his breath.  He stamped down the flood of inner recrimination – if he had not tried to feed Zudarra, if he had not been stupidly sentimental, if they had been able to leave a day earlier!  

 

“We should tie the horses up here,” she said gravely.

 

“Yes,” he agreed with Zudarra gruffly, and swung down to stake Ves loosely under a tree where there was grass.  “We won't be done when the gate's closed.  It looks like they're entrenched.”  He scowled heavily, turning to stare down the hill.  “They'd be some time rooting out all the survivors, at least.  Skingrad is a maze, and some of the houses are connected at the basement and rooftop level.  Can't tell if they've captured the castle from here, but I'll wager not.”  Castle Skingrad was separated from the city by a high, narrow bridge, eminently defensible.  Anyone who had managed to flee there before the portcullis came down was probably safe enough for now, and he doubted whether a siege engine the size of the one that had destroyed the wall could travel over it without the bridge collapsing.  The Count's fabled sorcery was obviously not enough to fight off a daedric army single-handed, but surely he had been able to save some within the walls.

 

They might be ignored on a walking approach through the fields, but surely they would be noticed as they approached the camp with its dreadful tents.  The idea of stealth did not even suggest itself to Saraven.  There were stereotypes of what Khajiit were like, and then there was Zudarra.

 

“Getting to that gate alive won't be easy,” he said, staring down the hill with a hand on the hilt of his longsword.

 

Galmir jumped down so Zudarra could more easily dismount and gasped when he finally saw the destruction that lay before them.  Zudarra could hear his heart pounding as his breathing quickened, face twisted in terror.  He'd been calm all morning from her feeding last night; both because he was weak from blood loss, and because he was falling deeper into thrallhood.  This was the first time today he showed any emotion.

 

“Don't look at it, Galmir,” she said, and clanked down in the next moment.  The Bosmer obeyed quickly, looking down at the ground instead.  His knuckles went white, fists clenched at his sides.  She led Shadow to a different tree and tied the reins to a low branch.

 

“You're to wait here with the horses.  Eat if you get hungry.”  She pulled her own shoulder bag off, full of provisions Lavinia had forced on her, and laid it by the tree.

 

“It seems like we'd be spotted from the road if we walk straight up,” Zudarra said to Saraven, coming to stand beside him.  “I can become invisible, but that doesn't do anything to hide you.  Want to be my diversion and throw yourself at them?”  She grinned toothily at him in jest.  

 

He raised an eyebrow at her, lips twisted to one side.

 

“It worked once before,” he said.  “How long can you make it last?”  The old ones could stay invisible an inconveniently long time.  He had generally found them by their irritating tendency to attack his mind, or waiting until they got impatient - probably aggravated by whatever it was that had made Zudarra bite him, now that he knew about that.

 

“Not long, I don't think,” Zudarra admitted, a bit surprised he'd been agreeable to that.  “I very rarely do it; stealth isn't my style.  A few minutes at most.  But then I'll be in the gate and you'll be swarmed with enemies.”

 

“Oh.  I thought you were going to kill them all while I distracted them,” he said dryly.  “Why don't you sneak around while they're trying to figure out why one lone mer is approaching them and kill, say, two different ones at different areas of the camp?  We'll try to make them think they're being attacked by a larger force from within the city, and then try and get into the gate while they're confused.  They won't shoot me right away.  They're cruel.  They like to play with their food first.”

 

“...Yes, that's a good idea,” Zudarra said after a long, thoughtful pause while the rusty gears in her brutish mind turned slowly.  Then she clapped Saraven on the back hard enough to knock him forward.  “I knew you'd be good for something.  Come on, then.  I can run faster than you and my invisibility won't last that long, so get a head start down the valley.”

 

She waited until the Dunmer was at the halfway point between the hilltop and the city, then closed her eyes to concentrate.  Zudarra only used this trick the few times she fed on people in public and feared being seen as she left, but that was a rare occurrence.  A sensation not unlike the release of magicka rippled across her fur, and when Zudarra opened her eyes she couldn't see her own muzzle, nor her hands as she held them up.  There was no time to waste.

 

Saraven could hear the clanking of her armor from behind and then a breeze as she gusted past him at breakneck speed.  She bounded past the portal to where a lone mage stood, a fair distance away from any others.  They were all staring with curiosity at the Dunmer on the horizon, flames already crackling in some of the mages' palms.  

 

The mage started at the sound of approaching armor, looking around for the source of the noise, but Zudarra was already behind him, slamming into his back with one arm and grabbing the top of his head with the claws of her other.  His yelp was cut short as she yanked backwards with all her vampiric strength.   _CRACK_.  She let the body crumple in a heap before darting away to her next victim.

 

Some others in the nearby group saw the body fall.

 

“Archers, from the city!” one of them shouted.

 

“You idiot, there's no one left on the wall.”

 

“There has to be.  Imago just went down.”

 

They were turning and watching the wall now.  Zudarra picked another who was alone, snapping his neck as easily as the first.

 

“Skingrad yet lives!  To me!” Saraven shouted as he drew his sword.  A female dremora – she had to be, her breastplate had sculpted breasts on it – drew a bead on him with a bow from the entry to a tent, grinning as she realized he was alone.  Others who had already been outside looked from him to the walls, unsure which direction to face.

 

“You will fall, mer of Nirn,” the dremora called out to him.  “Abandon hope and die.”

 

“Hope left me in Cheydinhal,” he said, voice harsh as he drew nearer.  “And yet I live.”

 

“You will have time to learn your place,” she said, and loosed an arrow.  Used to trying to cope with vampiric reflexes, Saraven was already rolling forward over his right shoulder when he heard the string creak, longsword held to the side to avoid stabbing himself.  He balled up the lightning in his left hand as he moved, and when he came to one knee he loosed it.  The dremora jerked in place, snarling in pain, and the arrow was loosed to fly in a random direction.  It pierced the wall of a tent, and there was a harsh scream from within.  

 

Saraven was already up and moving.  She did not have time to repent her mistake as the Dunmer slashed into her throat above her gorget, opening a wound from chin to ear.  He evaded a wild swipe easily and continued his progress toward the gate, listening to the gurgle of the creature dying behind him as he accelerated into a run.

 

“Arazed has fallen!” someone shouted behind him.  There was an argument in the dremora tongue, probably over who was next in the chain of command – he had slain an officer, he realized as he drew nearer the crimson membrane.  A glance backward showed arrows being fired out of a tent, but not at him; whomever the dying female had hit was attacking anything that moved.

 

Zudarra felt a tingle across her skin, her cue that the invisibility would fade soon.  Saraven had performed his role beautifully and was running for the portal, so Zudarra did the same.  She didn't hesitate this time, leaping into the fiery membrane with eyes wide open.  The dizzying sensation of moving sideways through space lasted only a moment and then her paws thudded on the arid ground of the Deadlands.

 

The portal had deposited her on a large, flat tract of land, but before her rose a sheer cliff that completely blocked the horizon.  A hole had been carved through the center and obstructed by a set of massive iron double doors, large enough for two siege engines to crawl through side by side.  In fact, only one of them had, judging by the tracks on the ground.  The gate in the cliff was currently shut, and there seemed to be no other way around, as an ocean of lava gurgled from all sides.

 

Two tall, spiny pillars rose from the ground on either side of the gate.  Their basic shape was conical, a head mounted at the top of each that was very much like the eye of the siege engine.  Long, curved horns protruded from the heads.  Luckily, the area was quite deserted, so they would have plenty of time to tackle this obstacle.

 

Saraven was already there, longsword at the ready.  He turned when he heard heavy feet land beside him.

 

“Well done,” he said.  “Did it perfectly.”  He started forward, looking around narrowly.  “There's got to be another way in.  They can't open the gate every time one warrior needs to go in or out on an errand.”  He saw no one watching from above, but the cliff top was so far away that it was possible they would neither see them nor be seen by them at this distance.  His mithral chain would produce a twinkling pinpoint against the black, rocky ground; Zudarra's duller armor might not appear at all.

 

Along the shore stood ranks of plants he had not yet seen, neither the veiny gray grass nor the whiplike vines.  These were waist-high gray stalks with a big dull yellow bloom atop every stem.  They were dark red and granular at the centers, disturbingly like the surface of a deep wound.  They swayed gently in the hot wind off the lava.

 

“Let's get a closer look at that gate,” Zudarra said, setting off for the iron doors.

 

As they neared the rock wall, they could see that some of the vertical crevices in the base of the cliff seemed to be deep, possibly leading into the mountain.  

 

When they were about thirty feet from the massive gate, the heads atop the twin pillars suddenly started spinning.  They rattled as they picked up speed, the single-eyed heads whirling faster and faster.  Zudarra stopped in her tracks, head snapping up to the curious sound.

 

Fireballs burst from each, one flying for the Khajiit and the other toward the Dunmer.  From that distance Zudarra dodged easily, but the startelement of the unexpected attack made her fur stand on end.  She backpedaled until the whirling head slowed to a halt.

 

Saraven paused as well, staring up at the towers, and then dove and rolled backward to avoid the resulting fireball.  It heated the armor on his right side as he scrambled back out of range.

 

“Hm.”  He surveyed the towers, eyes narrow, and then the walls on either side of them.  “If we can get to the wall and into a crack we'll be out of their range.  You might be able to run in a straight line, you're fast.  I'll have to try and serpentine.  Are you willing to go first and try and find a tunnel, so I know where to aim for?”

 

“Yes.  Hold on.”  She darted for the wall to the right of the gate.  The pillar started whirling and spitting out fireballs.  She felt the heat of some on her tail, but she was too fast a target for them to hit her.  The first crevice she came to was too shallow upon closer inspection, but the next looked deep.

 

It would be a tight squeeze for her, but possible.  The wall leading in was covered with red vines.  Zudarra recoiled in disgust as they writhed, sensing someone was near.  With no other choice, she ducked inside the crevice just as fire exploded against the outside wall.  The whip-like vines lashed out as she passed, raking her with knife-sharp edges across the face and slapping against her armor.  Without thinking she snarled and ripped a handful of vines from the wall with her bare hand.  The remaining tendrils jerked as if injured and she jumped back deeper into the cave out of their reach.

 

Her face and hand stung horribly.  She looked down at her palm, covered in deep cuts from the sharp vines.  She released a tiny puff of healing magicka and glared at the entrance for Saraven, tail lashing wildly behind her.  She was in a foul mood now.

 

 

* * *

 

The black skin of Kahzarku's new face was smooth and unmarked.  The tattoos that chronicled his deeds and the rings on his horns that named him Kynreeve must all be earned anew.  Arazed had taken his place as leader, a dishonor from which Kahzarku thought he might never recover.  He walked with other Caitiff now, shamefully looking into the faces of the worms he once commanded.

 

He would claw his way up the ranks again, Kahzarku had no doubt.  The war against Mundus would give him plenty of chances to distinguish himself.  In the meantime he had mortals to abuse in his anger, although the flaying and burning was no longer his right.  He was stuck fetching those wailing puke stains for the enjoyment of his superiors, a fact that made Kahzarku tremble with rage.

 

His clan's present posting was Agesh, an island on the other side of the world.  Kahzarku was not aware of the fact that the mortal city he now stood before was a day's ride away from the city where he failed to capture Martin Septim and was slain by a mortal.  

 

Every line of that mortal's gray face was etched into his mind.  He did not expect to get revenge.  The mer would be dead in the blink of an eye, forever robbing Kahzarku of the ability to redeem himself.  

 

When shouts from outside provoked Kahzarku to step from the war tent, the iron hammer slipped from his hands.  He'd been driving stakes through the limbs of some golden-skinned mer, pinning him to the ground for Arazed's later enjoyment.  He continued to moan painfully behind the dremora.  His tongue had been cut to end his incessant pleading.

 

It was _him_.  The gray mer in his mithral armor cut down Arazed with ease and fled to the portal.  The anger at seeing his clan sister and Kynreeve shamefully die was dwarfed by the joyful realization that Kahzarku might reclaim a piece of his honor this day.  Argument broke out, and he knew there would soon be a duel to decide her successor.  No one cared about the lone mortal who ran to his death when such important matters were at hand.

 

Kahzarku waited for the fighting to escalate before following.  Someone might try to steal his kill if he showed interest, but the mortal would be his alone.  When he was sure that no one was paying him any mind, Kahzarku strode through the portal without missing a beat.  His eyes immediately landed on the lone figure in front of the gate, no doubt wondering how to get through to the tower.

 

“Mortal!  Your day to bleed has come!” Kahzarku bellowed, hefting his battleaxe from its harness and breaking into a run.

 

* * *

 

Saraven watched the Khajiit, poised on the balls of his feet.  She moved almost too fast for his eyes to track, but he had been watching vampires run for long enough to watch for the telltales: puffs of dust rising from the dirt along her path, little impacts of her weight hitting, harder and deeper from the sheer power of each impact traveling at such a speed.  So he was able to see where she disappeared into the cliff, something moving at the entrance around her.  Vines?  Some creature?  He started to move after her when he heard a shout from behind him.  He turned to see a dremora in armor charging toward him, battleaxe in hand.

 

He had seen many faces of many dremora in the last week of his life.  It was not impossible to determine differences in their features, in the shades of black-red-brown-orange in their mottled skins, in the size and shape of their horns.  The voices still sounded alike to him, but this one seemed oddly familiar somehow.  Those exact horns he was sure he had seen, though the face had been covered in swirling marks -

 

The first gate.  He had an eye on his breastplate.

 

“You again,” Saraven grunted.  He had heard that daedra could not easily be killed forever, that they would make their way back through the waters of Oblivion again and again.  He turned to move into the charge, letting the dremora build up momentum and then dodging to his left as he swung, under the blade of the axe.  This time he was ready for a back-swing of the haft, and he kept spinning, trying to slash at the underarm where padding replaced armor.

 

The mortal's blade glanced off Kahzarku's armor, narrowly missing the seam, and the dremora's own backward stab met with nothing but air.  This mer was an agile creature and had learned well from their last meeting.  Kahzarku sneered at the mortal as he turned to face him, axe resting comfortably in his hands.  

 

“So you remember.  Good.  It will please me all the more if you know who disembowels your broken body while you watch,” he growled and lurched for Saraven with the battleaxe still held close to his face, feinting a blow with the head of his axe, but shifting his hands before momentum could build and striking at the Dunmer's right hand with his haft instead.

 

Saraven dodged to the right too late to realize what was happening, and the haft of the axe smashed into his right hand with an audible crack as he felt a bone snap.  He lost his grip on the longsword as pain flared through his palm and fingers.  His left hand caught the falling sword as he kept moving, teeth bared in silent reaction.  He had never been fully ambidextrous, but he was at least competent with the longsword left-handed.

 

His own weapon weighed too much to outmaneuver the swift-footed mortal under normal circumstances, so Kahzarku would just have to even the playing field.  He grinned at the sound of crushing bones, shifting his weight to the right and kicked at the Dunmer's knee, always holding his axe high to guard his face.  

 

Saraven twisted away in time to save his knee, but the blow thudded into his left thigh, knocking him off balance.  The world became a kaleidoscope of black earth and red sky as he rolled away, aching from the new bone-deep bruise.  The dremora was fighting smarter than he had last time, actively trying to leverage his greater strength to negate Saraven's speed advantage.  Perhaps there was something to the tales of dremora cunning after all, more than the screaming torture-obsessed thugs he had seen so far.  For now the Dunmer scrambled frantically away, trying to put distance between them and regain his balance.

 

The dremora finally hefted the axe over his head, every step a heavy clatter as his daedric boots stomped over the dusty ground towards the rolling mer.  He slammed the weapon down just as Saraven scrambled aside, the bladed edge driving deep and sticking itself in the earth.  Kahzarku growled in annoyance, yanking the weighty axe head back from the ground.  He fell back a step under the sudden burden as it came free.

 

 _Where is Zudarra?_ Saraven wondered.   _She would never run from a fight.  She must be trapped in the cave somehow, perhaps tangled in the vines_.  He needed to go after her.  What if she had run into a flame atronach in an enclosed space?  He was startled to find he felt real apprehension.  For all their mutual dislike, she was the person with whom he had interacted the most over the last week – probably over the last year.

 

But the puff of blue magicka as he healed his hand reminded him of something he had momentarily forgotten.  Saraven jerked his left hand forward, palm splayed as he let the lightning go.

 

Kahzarku was too slow to dodge the lightning at that range.  He jerked as it hit and fell back, clutching the haft of his weapon tightly as he twitched silently on the ground.  Steam rose from the chinks of his armor as daedric flesh cooked.  He was left staring up at the rolling black clouds when it was done, eyeballs bulging from their sockets and muscles still spasming.  He tried to move; there was too much resistance, too much pain.  There was too much numbness in the worst parts for Kahzarku to know that his skin and flesh had melded with his armor padding and sloughed off when he fell.

 

* * *

 

 

Halasse had waited in the dark for some time, dreaming in the heat.  She had found her way to this place after her last death, furious at the betrayal of her sister, seeking a nexus of power with more rage and less subtlety than that of her progenitor.  Selanne had broken a rule; backstabbing and poisoning and child-murder were for the Fifth Strand, the Cavern of No Law.  Halasse would find her way back to the tight halls of Envy in the Second Strand of the Spiral Skein one day, in the fullness of time.  For now she basked in the warmth and the darkness and the sweet, hot blood of Dagon's children.  

 

They were so indignant when they fell paralyzed into her embrace, furious that they had been overcome by stealth.  She rejoiced in their dying struggles, ever in denial of their fate, but she missed mortals.  Mortals knew that they were meant to die, to submit, to fall, and she lived for that last moment of exhausted acceptance, when they yet lived but had ceased to struggle, when she might pause to sing to them and caress their pretty faces before she had her last drink.  Dremora or mortal, her victims did not suffer.  Her venom anesthetized them against pain, numbing them, weakening their struggles.

 

Against the black stone with its veins of orange and red she was nearly invisible.  The spider that she was from the waist down was black with threads of crimson woven through her exoskeleton.  The chitin climbed her torso to form a rough corset against her chest, over the features that had no function or meaning in a creature that did not nurse her young.  Her face and hands were dead-white, symmetrical, beautiful as a statue is beautiful – the perpetual half-smile on her perfect mouth was cold, perpetually amused.  Her lips were red and slick in the darkness, her eyes white as web, white as mortal seed.  She was without a headdress in this place, with no access to less clever or potent sisters who might be deceived into a sensual embrace that would then be their last in that incarnation.  Her white hair hung lank and shining around her shoulders.

 

She had no children with her in this place of rage and darkness.  They had fallen when she fell, and they had to make their own way through the Waters as best they could.  Perhaps they had come to other shores.  Perhaps they had been lost in the stream.  She had amused herself with the bodies of one or two of her victims so far – she had a venom sufficient to that use – but she was not yet gravid.  The species of the father would not matter.  All of her daughters would be as she was.

 

Now she heard a snarl from the outer cavern as someone fought their way in through the harrada.  Halasse smiled sweetly and crept toward the sound on swift and silent feet, her mouth watering with the First Venom.  She thought she heard something new, not quite the sound of a dremora's voice, not quite a mortal's scent.  She dodged around a corner and spat at the shape that loomed between her and the light.

 

* * *

 

Zudarra had been distracted by the vines, but now she took note of an odd scent.  Everything in the Deadlands was alien and strange, but she'd been there twice now and was growing accustomed to its smells.  The sulfurous stink of the air, the ancient and earthy black stone, even the bizarre half-living flesh sacks were recognizable.  This was a new living thing.  Just as she lifted her nose to better scent the air, she heard a faraway shout.

 

_Saraven!_

 

Before she could twitch, something wet splattered the back of her head.  The Khajiit whirled to see what had hit her, hand flying to her scalp to touch the moisture in her fur.  White skin and white eyes seemed to glow in the light from the mouth of the cave.  Snarling, Zudarra leapt at the new daedra with vampiric speed, black claws gleaming as they extended to dig into the flesh of its humanoid upper body.  Even as she jumped the venom tingled through her pads where she'd touched it and Zudarra felt her muscles stiffen as it spread.

 

Halasse was taken by surprise at the creature's speed, so much faster than one of Dagon's children.  She hissed as black claws raked the soft flesh of her chest and right arm, blood springing to the surface.  She scuttled backward with a sound like a box of dice rattling, no longer attempting stealth, and spread her hands in supplication.  Healing power spiraled in from palms to body.

 

She watched the creature stiffen and start to topple forward, and she grinned, showing her sharp fangs, and darted forward to catch her – yes, her, Halasse's hand cupped the shape of a breast molded into her armor.  She sank to the floor with the heavy weight cradled in her arms.

 

“Shh, shh,” she cooed.  “There's a pretty thing.”  She spoke Cyrodilic.  She had mastery of several tongues over a long existence of preying on many beings that spoke and bargained and reasoned, all very entertaining if you weren't too hungry.

 

Something was different about this one.  It wasn't the fur – her hand stroked the soft coat on the mortal's face with pleasure – but the feeling of strangely cool flesh, cool even for a mortal creature.  The teeth seemed long even for one of the furred ones.  The half-shut eyes were red.

 

“Here is something new,” she said.  “Are you bitter or sweet, hmm?  Have you secrets to tell?  You may speak, you know.  The First Venom goes from the tongue first of all.”

 

Zudarra glared up at the white face, lips trembling over her fangs as the creature stroked her face almost lovingly.  Frothy spittle dripped from her open mouth as her tongue fluttered uselessly, aching for the taste of the blood she still smelled on her claws.  Her arms twitched, fingers clenching and unclenching in a weak fist but she was unable to raise her hands as she wanted.  Her limbs had become dead logs, heavy and useless.

 

“I'll... kill you!” Zudarra snarled, an animalistic cry that was more shriek than words.

 

The spider daedra clucked her tongue.  “Tsk, tsk.  I didn't think you were going to be boring.  Well, let's have a taste, then.”  She bent to thumb loose the clasp of the creature's gorget and flip the panel aside so that she could lean down, rubbing her cheek against the mortal's soft fur.  “Cold, cold for a child of Nirn.  How do we solve this riddle, Hm?”  She sank her teeth in slowly, enjoying her victim's tremors of outrage and fruitless struggle.  The big vein was in the right place, at least.  

 

Zudarra jerked against the touch of fangs on her neck but her movement amounted to only a twitch.  The puncture hurt more than she would have expected -- none of her own victims ever thrashed or made a cry of pain -- and the sickening sensation of blood being sucked left her trembling in impotent rage.  It happened so easily.  Zudarra was utterly powerless to defend against the violation.

 

Halasse sipped lightly at first, raising her head to lick her lips.  Blood streamed slowly from the punctures.

 

“Hmm.  Bittersweet, my dear, not very tasty, not very warm.  Almost as though one were already dead.  Aha, I have it!”  She grinned down at her victim, reaching up to scritch between the cream-colored ears.  “One of the transformed, the mortal putting on immortality.  Are you a daughter of Rape or of Wishes, Bal or the Vile?”

 

The gentle touch and friendly chatter was a humiliation Zudarra could not bear.  She slashed at the daedra's face, muscles straining as if pushing through tar, but there was little force behind the blow with her arm trapped between their bodies and Zudarra's own body fighting her movements.

 

Halasse recoiled, blood running hot down her cheek from the mortal's claws.  She dropped the mortal, letting her flop to the hot stone floor as she scooted her abdomen backward.  Zudarra landed on her back with a painful jolt, the clank of steel plates echoing dully in the cave.  She struggled to roll to her side but only succeeded in a pitiful rock.  “Hasss!  Well, that's rude.  If I had children you'd be in for a nibbling, my dear.  Pity you are cloven and not crested.  Your daughters would be strong ones.”

 

“My friend outside would be happy to sire your daughters,” Zudarra ground through clenched teeth, grinning mirthlessly.

 

 _Sorry, Saraven,_ she thought. _I need the time._  She'd heard the noise of distant battle and knew something deadly had Saraven held up; maybe something he couldn't face alone.  But Zudarra could already feel her clenched muscles begin to relax, far too slowly for her to be useful anytime soon.  If she had to pick between the Dunmer's survival and her own, Zudarra would pick herself.  She doubted the spider would take her bait after she'd already demonstrated she wasn't fully paralyzed, but she had to try.

 

“Oh, did you bring a friend?”  Halasse delicately tip-tapped around her and edged over to peer out of the cavern-mouth.  The harrada was still retracted from the immortal's attacks on it earlier; one strand that tentatively prodded her was impatiently swatted away.  She thought that the immortal was probably trying to trick her, but you never knew your luck.

 

A gray-skinned, white-haired creature in very shiny chainmail stood facing one of Dagon's children who was even now falling.  As Halasse watched he moved forward, raising a daedric longsword.

 

“Wait!” she called out.  The mortal paused, looking around warily.  “I have something of yours.  Trade?”

 

“Trade what?” his voice was a rough, scraping noise in his throat, without melody.

 

“Him.  If he's not dead I can heal him enough to feed me well.”  He would taste considerably better than the bitter-blooded vampire, and she doubted seriously whether the gray one would entertain a salacious offer.  He was a dour-looking sort.

 

The mortal peered down at his foe, then over at Halasse waving from the crack.  “I'd never get him past the towers.”

 

She sighed in exasperation, glancing over her shoulder.  “Oh, fine.  I'll come to you.”  She loathed being in the open, but she knew there was no way he could carry a dremora in full armor fast enough not to be set on fire.  Halasse set out across the black earth, scuttling in a zig-zag pattern; the towers lit and spun, but they spat in vain at the fast-moving spider daedra as she skittered across the black earth.

 

When the tak-tak-tak of the spider daedra's feet grew faint, Zudarra threw her weight into another roll.  This time she was able to get up on one elbow, and could look around better at the cave.  The narrow entrance opened into a wide tunnel, and she saw many branching paths further on.  She might be able to hide while the daedra was distracted, if only she could get her limbs to cooperate.  Her legs twitched unresponsively.

 

Saraven watched the daedra approach warily, backing up beyond the prone dremora.  He believed the creature was even still conscious, though he must be in terrible pain.  It had been his intention to stab him in the eye.

 

“You said you have something of mine,” he said as the spider daedra drew nearer.  She smiled winningly, eyes flat-white and almost unreadable above her wet red lips.  She clasped her hands at her midriff, looking at the dremora and over at him.

 

“Why yes, your angry friend with the bitter-tasting blood, Molag's child.  She said you would sire my little ones gladly, but I think she was probably lying to get me to leave the cavern.  Silly girl.  She's still paralyzed, you know.”

 

“Hm.  What would that mean, exactly?”

 

“Oh, it would be very easy for you.  I have a special venom for it and everything,” she assured him, looking at him demurely sideways.

 

“Not reassuring,” Saraven said.

 

“Look, at least let me eat Dagon's child there, you're not doing anything with him.”

 

Saraven shrugged.  “All right.  I'm going to get Zudarra.”

 

“That sounds to me like an excellent bargain.   Shoo shoo.”  The spider daedra ticker-tapped over to lean over the dremora and spit onto his face.  The moment the venom had begun to sublimate from his skin she clapped her hands over him, blue healing power spiraling upward.  Saraven backed away as she settled downward onto her abdomen, reaching out to gather the prone dremora into her arms.

 

Kahzarku growled through his nose as the pain faded, but one form of paralysis had been exchanged for another.  The axe slipped from his hands as the daedra lifted him, too heavy to be held without the full cooperation of his muscles.

 

“You're a handsome fellow,” Halasse crooned to the dremora as she enfolded him in her arms, white bosom against his cheek.  “What's your name?”

 

She was not entirely finished with the other two, but she would have time enough to find them again.  The caverns beneath the cliff were extensive, and she knew them very well; and why shouldn't she have a certain meal before she went chasing after an uncertain one?

 

Kahzarku swallowed thickly and realized his mouth was working.

 

“Release me, traitor!  Those mortals threaten Dagon's realm!” he snarled, brow twitching furiously.  He wanted to reach out and wring this insolent wench's neck.  “The elf must die by my hand!”

 

“How original,” Halasse said, stroking his black hair as she listened to his threats.  “You know, nearly every one of you has called me that?  It's almost as if you think I was made here.”  She looked around, but the black plain was still desolate; the army that had marched out was still in Nirn.  Now she bent to undo the dremora's gorget.  Blood beat hot and sweet under the skin, quickened by his fury.  She stroked the great vessel with her nails, licking her lips, and then bent to sink in her teeth.

 

* * *

 

Saraven turned and sprinted for the cavern mouth, dodging to left and right to make his path less predictable.  He heard fireballs impact behind him, one so close that it scorched the back of his boot.  He hurled himself into the crack with sword outstretched, ready to hack at vine or web or whatever was there, but he found only the fleshy vines.  They whipped at his armored torso quite without effect as he danced through into the heat and darkness.

 

Zudarra's ears flicked back towards the approaching footsteps, knowing it must be Saraven.  She heaved herself to her knees now, leaning against the cave wall for support, unfastened gorget swinging freely.  Her joints were locked up; she couldn't seem to pull herself up any farther.

 

“We have to get out of here!” Zudarra told the shadow in the doorway, stiffly turning her head to look at him.  The fur of her neck was matted with blood, but the flow had stopped.  The Khajiit was overcome with a sudden shame knowing Saraven would see it.  The fingers of her right hand twitched and the punctures healed in a flash of blue.

 

Saraven moved forward, sheathing his sword as he looked quickly around them.

 

“Are you all right?”  Her gorget was undone and the dust of blood was just puffing away from her fur after the healing.   _Your friend with the bitter-tasting blood._  He bent to push his shoulder under hers, to help heft her onto her feet.  He needed her well.  He would just have to find someone to feed her quickly, that was all.  She would be fine.   _She'll be fine.  She'll be fine…_

 

 

“I'm fine,” Zudarra snipped, tail twitching.  She was mostly mad at herself for being caught so easily, but Saraven was conveniently there, acting as if she needed help, and it was easier to be annoyed with him instead.  She leaned her considerable weight on the elf as she stood.  “The paralysis is wearing off.”

 

She put one paw in front of the other and almost fell, but her arm around Saraven steadied her.  Zudarra growled.  The warmth of his body, his smell, the thudding of his heart were all so close, right under her nose.  She glanced down at the leather gorget around his neck before looking back up the tunnel and limped forward, face tense with determination.  When she could support her weight herself she yanked her arm away from the Dunmer and refastened her gorget without pausing.

 

The roughness with which she pulled away from him did not surprise him.  He perfectly understood hating to admit weakness, and it eased his apprehension.  A Zudarra acting like a complete ass was a Zudarra fully in command of herself, in fighting shape.  Saraven let her determine their direction, knowing he lacked a Khajiit's sense of smell.

 

 _Have to get away from that daedra._  Some of the tunnels were thick with her scent.  Zudarra guided them down those that were not.  The light of the entry had faded behind them, leaving them in the dark.  Gray light shone from tiny natural air shafts here and there, but they were few and far between.  She caught a faint trace of dremora and scamp, but the scents were so old they couldn't have been using these tunnels as a regular path around the gate.  But it was too late to go back to the surface and find another.  Zudarra reported as much to Saraven as they ran.

 

“Clannfear have been here most recently,” she said.  “And something else that I can't place.  Something new.”

 

“Oh, good,” he said dryly.  There was no point in asking was it a Xivilai, was it an atronach, was it something else; she no more knew what each of those smelled like than he did.  

 

The tunnels seemed endless, a hell of black stone and heat.  They ran for what felt like hours through the twisting passageways, choosing upward slopes when they could, but often forced downward instead.  The black, scaly volcanic stone beneath their feet grew warm, the air stale and hot.  They had just entered a large chamber, held up with natural pillars carved by ancient lava flow.  Several other passages lead out in all directions.  An orange glow and burbling whisper spoke of lava at the bottom of one downward sloping tunnel.  

 

A wet squelch raised Zudarra's hackles, but it was just a fleshy pod clinging to a pillar with its long tendrils.  The pod quivered, beads of sweat rolling across pale flesh, painted peach from the light of the tunnel.  The raised vessels snaking across its skin pulsed faintly.  In the absence of other sound, Zudarra could hear it loud as a drum in her ear.

 

“We'll take a break.  You're probably tired,” Zudarra said, tongue lolling from her parted mouth as she panted, and slowed to lean against a pillar.  Her thoughts were slow and sluggish in this oppressive heat that baked the Khajiit in her armor.  She envied Saraven for his mithral.

 

Saraven slowed willingly enough, looking around them.  There was no telling whether they were even near the fortress now, or if they had wandered out under the blackened plain, moving toward an exit that would find them on some desolate promontory.

 

Zudarra pushed away from the pillar and walked to the farther end of the chamber, giving the pod a wide berth.  Her nose twitched at the mouth of every tunnel, checking for the faint trace of fresh air that might herald an exit.  None of them seemed good candidates, although one was thick with alien musk.  That way was best avoided.

 

“It doesn't look good,” Zudarra said, returning to Saraven.  She couldn't imagine how thirsty he must be running along in this dry air.  Zudarra's throat ached as well; her last feeding had been light, as it wouldn't take much to suck Galmir dry.  She might try to exchange him for a larger slave when the chance arose, but for now they were both left parched in the sweltering heat.

 

A scrape of claw against rock.  Zudarra's head jerked toward the tunnel she'd resolved to avoid in time to see a dark shape emerge from around the bend.  It ambled forward and sat crouched in the mouth of the passage, using arms nearly as long as the rest of its body and short digitigrade legs to propel itself forward.  The hands that it walked on were palmless, twin claws curved up and behind as it leaned on its knuckles.

 

The body was roughly humanoid in shape, covered in brown scales so dark that it nearly blended with the cavern walls.  Without the glow of the lava a non-Khajiit might never have seen it at all.  An oblong head whipped towards them, two little eyes on either side of its long snout winking at the trespassers in its lair.

 

No, Zudarra realized.  The beast was eyeless, and the movement she saw on its face were flaring nostrils as it scented the air.  Its head was armored in thick scales, a natural plate armor to shield the brains.  A long, pink proboscis tipped with barbs slithered from a lipless hole on the end of it's tubular muzzle before zipping back inside.  Zudarra had never seen an anteater personally, but vaguely knew they were native to a homeland she'd never seen.  It reminded her of that.

 

Zudarra froze in place, staring at the strange creature, unsure what to do.  Saraven did not hear what she heard, but he could follow where she was looking well enough.  He stared into the darkness, trying to parse out the shape of another creature, and one hand went to the hilt of his longsword.  Whatever they found in this place, it would not be friendly to strangers.

 

“What do you -” he started to say, and then a blur of brown scales shot out of the tunnel-mouth into the dim light of the room, leaping from it's short hind claws and stretching its long arms out to grab Zudarra.  Too stunned was she to dodge and the daedra hit her square in the chest, knocking her down on her back.  It's long claws gripped her shoulders as it clung to her.  She jerked her head aside just as the thick proboscis stabbed the ground beside her head with a wet slurp.

 

Saraven drew his sword as they went down together, and now he could see the thing, an emaciated eyeless monstrosity unlike anything he'd ever seen.  Saraven stepped forward, sword in hand, looking for a gap in the armored scales.  Every creature had places where the scales were softer, thinner: under the arms, between the legs, under the chin -

 

Under the chin.  There were heavy scales armoring the top of its head and face, but under its throat was nearly unprotected.  Saraven lunged forward to stab at it with the longsword.

 

The creature's head turned to the sound of Saraven's footsteps and lashed at him backhanded, clubbing the Dunmer hard across the face with its long arm.

 

The thing's arm was all bone and scale, and it was fast, faster than he had expected.  Pain exploded through the front of his skull.  Saraven staggered back, black and white spots blotting out the world for a second as the longsword clattered on the floor.  

 

Zudarra grabbed the arm still pinning her shoulder and hurled her weight aside, rolling on top of the daedra and slamming the long head to the ground with her free hand.  It made a sound halfway between a hum and a gargle, deep and throaty.  With a frenzied hiss the vampire forced her fangs through the softer scales of its throat, but like other daedra, it wouldn't succumb as she fed.  It thrashed its legs and banged the free hand against her armor.  The prehensile tongue shot from its mouth, waving in the air before slithering to its target above her gorget.  Zudarra was oblivious to all of it, lost in a haze of pleasure as she swallowed her first gulp of daedric blood, until something tightened around her throat.

 

Saraven was on his knees when his vision cleared, sagging forward toward the floor.  He caught himself on one hand.  With the other he groped for the sword, shaking his head to try to dispel the cobwebs.  His fumbling hand found the hilt, tightened around the hot metal.  Even in Nirn it was always warm to the touch.  Now the creature was on its back, entangled with Zudarra.  He could hear her frantic swallowing, like a thirsty man under a fountain, completely unaware of the thing's tongue slithering around her throat.  It was longer and taller than she was, but her body was bulkier; Saraven scrambled forward, seeking in vain for a way to get at anything vital.  There was no going for its throat with Zudarra in the way; its face was armored; her armor covered its belly.

 

“Move, you have to move,” he hissed at her.

 

Zudarra jerked away as the tongue coiled tighter around her neck, barbs digging into her skin.  The touch panicked her; Zudarra did not need to breathe, but it was a habit still deeply ingrained.  She rolled off the daedra away from Saraven and the creature followed, clambering on top of her again, slashing frantically at her face.  Her arms flew to her head to protect from the blows.

 

Saraven breathed, in breathed out, trying to steady his vision, and stabbed at the side of the creature's chest, trying to slide in between its presumptive ribs while its arms were up trying to get at Zudarra's face.

 

The daedra shrieked its gargling wail as the blade pierced flesh, instinctively leaping aside but unable to uncoil its tongue from the Khajiit's neck fast enough.  Its movement jerked her up by the neck.  Rage burned in her red eyes, blood weeping from the gouges cut across her nose and brow.  Zudarra grabbed the tongue at its base, barbs digging into the flesh of her palm as she squeezed, and yanked. With a wet tear and a pained howl the tongue ripped free of the daedra's mouth, blood splurting over Zudarra's greaves.  It fell back and flailed on its side, long limbs striking out blindly and droplets of blood flinging as it thrashed and cried.

 

The noise was awful, piercing his ears and seeming to stab into his aching brain.  Saraven moved quickly to decapitate the thing, falling to one knee and hacking at its scaly neck over and over.  Zudarra scrambled up to hold two of the thrashing limbs as Saraven hacked.  Blood spurted with every wet chop, pattering their faces, their armor, their hands.  Zudarra's mouth fell open instinctively, watching the gory scene with wild eyes.  The coppery tang was on her tongue and in her nose, flooding her mind with a desire for more.

 

Then the daedra sagged quietly under their grasp when Saraven finally succeeded in severing its head.  The noise had finally stopped, leaving them staring across the lanky, twitching body at each other.  Bloody chunks of meat that had been its neck glistening in the dim glow.  It was dead and no longer appealing to the vampire, but the heady scent remained.  

 

“Are you -” Saraven started to say, then paused, shaking his head.  There was something he should be doing, but he couldn't remember what it was.  His fingers had lost their grip on his sword, he realized in the moment before he crumpled onto his side, the room whirling around him.

 

The Khajiit looked vacantly at the Dunmer as he spoke and then as he collapsed, sword skittering across stone.  She surged forward over the corpse of the daedra, its long tongue still draped over her shoulders, grabbing the mer by the arm and hauling him up.  He flopped like a rag doll in her grasp.

 

Furred lips curled back over wet fangs and the vampire mindlessly descended on the leather-bound neck, but her teeth bumped something stiff and unyielding.  The scent and texture was all wrong.

 

 _Saraven's gorget._  Zudarra's eyes widened in horror as comprehension dawned. _What was I about to do?_  She shifted the mer in her arms, cradling his head against the crook of her arm and laying her palm on his chest.  Healing light embraced Saraven, washing from torso to head and boots.

 

“Saraven?” she asked, eyes and ears trained expectantly on the Dunmer's face.  Her voice trembled.

 

He was not very aware of what happened between when he fell and when he was healed.  He thought that there was something wrong with his neck, his gorget suddenly tight, but that was all wrong and then blue light bloomed in front of his eyes and he was blinking up at Zudarra's face.

 

 _She tried to bite me, good Gods, she did it again._  But her voice was not one of unrepentant predation.  She sounded horrified at herself.

 

“I'm all right,” he said.  “Not your fault.”  He should have healed himself immediately when he knew he'd hit his head.  They sneaked up on you, head injuries.  He was getting old, that was what it was.  Now he sat up slowly, reaching out to squeeze her arm.

 

“Daedric blood does something to you,” he said.  “It happened last gate, too.”

 

Her face hardened to a cold, slightly irritated mask once again.  Zudarra almost shoved him aside for the implication that she'd lost control.  But her eyes shifted to the hand on her arm, then back to his face.  His tone was not accusing and the touch was meant to comfort.  Her tongue fluttered against her teeth in preparation for words, but Zudarra didn't know what she would say, so she shut her cracked muzzle and backed away.  He could obviously stay up under his own power now.

 

“What in the hells is this thing?” she asked, rising and kicking the corpse with a paw.  Anything to distract from the unspoken words and the shame twisting in her gut.

 

_Saraven was right about me.  I really am a monster._

 

Something wet rolled off the tip of her nose and Zudarra remembered her cuts.  She yanked the severed tongue from her neck and threw it down, raising the other hand to heal minor wounds with a quick burst of magicka.  The tongue smacked wetly against stone and she absently rubbed her damp fur where it had held her.

 

He watched her heal herself as he got up.  She was in control now, certainly.  She was doing the thing that she always did when she felt ashamed or uncertain, which was to get angry.  He tried to imagine her as the ancient he had been projecting all this time, a cold and calculating intelligence, as enslaved by the lust for cruelty and inflicted pain as the lust for blood.  He could not.  

 

Saraven went to retrieve his sword.

 

“Never saw the like,” he said.  “But at least there's probably only one, or it would've attacked by now.  We have to keep on.”

 

Zudarra faintly hoped there were more.  Its blood had been divine, and what little she'd been allowed was invigorating.  If only they would relax as she fed.  Perhaps Saraven could be convinced to help her lop off its limbs and tongue and cauterize the stumps with his flame.  It would make a perfect portable snack, if only Zudarra trusted herself to stop drinking before it died.

 

“Yes, probably true,” she said instead, and picked a tunnel that sloped upward.

 

* * *

 

The dremora's blood was delicious, and his furious imprecations amused Helasse for some minutes as she delicately sipped.  Finally it occurred to her that the army would be back at some point, or someone from the fortress would look out and see her.  She detached from his throat, licking her lips.

 

“Well, this has been delightful, but I think we'll have to continue a little later.”  She draped the dremora over her great tear-drop of an abdomen, where her backmost knees would keep him in place, and turned to make her run for the cavern.  The towers' defenses singed her ankles, but they did not harm her, and they couldn't do much to her prize even if they had hit him full on.  She batted away the harrada from the entrance before she slid inside, that they might not damage his face.

 

There was a cavern off the main, broad path where she sometimes stashed living playmates, the ones she planned to have her fun with for some time to come.  It was a cozy little room, all rounded, like the inside of a bottle on its side.  Webs lined the walls and floor.  She tipped the dremora onto the floor, then dragged him over to arrange him sitting upright against the wall, humming to herself.  She stood high on her tiptoes, bending her abdomen forward to spray him with web from her spinnerets.

 

“There,” she said.  “Now you just have a nice rest and I'll be back again before you know it.  Ta.”

 

Now, which way had they gone?  Halasse tiptapped this way and that up and down the hallways, listening for a beating heart.  Molag's child probably did not have one any more, but the mortal certainly did, she had heard it.  Eventually she caught a faint scent of blood in the distance, but it was daedric, not mortal.  Ah, well, perhaps they had gone that way and run into her friend the vermai.  He wasn't much of a talker, but on the other hand, his scales were too thick for her to reasonably bite through.  She slowed as she moved toward his lair, working to silence her footsteps.

 

Tsk.  He was dead, his head chopped off and his tongue pulled out of his mouth.  They were such naughty bunnies, these two from Nirn.  They'd be great fun if only the vampire tasted better.  She crept up the hallway after them, grinning as she waited to catch a glimpse of a tail or shiny armor.

\--

Zudarra thought she heard something lightly ghosting across the stone behind them, but when she paused to listen better the lava gurgled from faraway chambers and it was impossible to tell what she'd really heard.  She was probably still on edge from the earlier attack, Zudarra reasoned.  She didn't want to ask Saraven to stop and let her check; she'd look paranoid then, and he'd already been witness to too many of her weak moments.

 

 _Not weakness,_ she reminded herself.   _Daedric blood clouding my mind, that's all.  I didn't actually bite him._

 

This path twisted up and around, climbing higher than any they'd traversed so far.  It widened into another large chamber and narrowed far ahead.  More throbbing flesh sacs clung to the walls like nightmarish barnacles.  Hot air wavered from tiny cracks in the floor, leading deep into the earth where churning magma lit the room from the bottom.  None of the gaps were big enough to catch your foot in, but they would burn bare pads if stepped on.

 

The Khajiit's nostrils flared at a scent she was beginning to lose hope of ever catching again.

 

“Fresh air!” she exclaimed, voice echoing dully in the chamber.  “It's a good thing I still bother to breathe.”  There was a definite draft of fresh air from the tunnel as they approached.

 

That actually startled Saraven into an amused exhalation.  He sped up to move after her, longsword in hand.

 

Something wet hit him in the back of the head.  Weakness spread through his body.  He spun, staring down their back-trail at the smiling face of the spider daedra as he started to sag against one wall.

 

“Zudarra,” he said.  He managed to lift one hand in time to let go the lightning.  The spider could not escape in the narrow space, shrieking as all eight legs convulsed, kicking and scraping at the walls as she slid back down-slope.

 

Zudarra whirled, drawing the greatsword from its unlined scabbard with an echoing _shnk_.  She sprinted for the convulsing daedra, sword parallel to the ground and driven forward like a spear.

 

If the paralyzing venom touched her, they were both dead.

 

 _One chance._  She launched herself forward with a raging roar, aiming to drive the blade through the heart of the deadra's humanoid torso.

 

The creature screamed, trying to scramble away, but she could not move fast enough, and she had not had time to heal her damaged nerves.  The greatsword pierced her to the hilt, splitting her sternum with a solid shunk.  Blood ran down her chin as she stared incredulously at Zudarra, mouth opening and closing, and she futilely tried to claw at the vampire's shoulders for a second before she finally stiffened, mouth yawning wide, and then went limp around the blade.

 

Saraven was left sitting in the hallway, leaning against the wall.  He could not muster the energy to feel humiliated.  He was beginning to feel very tired, as he had inside the first gate.

 

_No. I will live.  Zudarra will live.  We will close the gate and escape.  Tamriel needs us!_

 

Zudarra's snarling glare transformed to a wide-mouthed grin as the daedra's groping arms dropped and the body fell slack.  Bracing a hand against the flaring crossguard she twisted, relishing the sensation of serrated teeth ripping through flesh and organ.

 

“I hope you lasted long enough to feel that, you worthless shit,” Zudarra spat, raising a finger to the corpse in an uncouth gesture.  She yanked the blade back, blood gushing after it.  Shreds of gore were caught in its teeth and Zudarra tapped it against the ground to knock them loose.  The thick scent of blood in the air drove her wild with need again.  She closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself, before turning to walk back to Saraven.

 

“Now _that_ was satisfying.  Paralyzed?” she asked in good humor, stabbing the glistening blade into a crack in the ground in front of the Dunmer and crossing her arms over the hilt.

 

Instantly he felt alive again.  Annoyance was a warming emotion compared to cold exhaustion.  “Yes, damn it,” Saraven growled.  Apparently his tongue had recovered first; he certainly was having no luck doing more than flopping his left arm around otherwise.

 

“Ah, damn,” said the Khajiit, her smile growing.  It really wasn't funny -- every second spent here hurt their chances of survival -- but she couldn't help it.  “That's really inconvenient.  I want out of these damned caves yesterday.  I'd carry you out, but if something were waiting for us, your dead weight would get us both killed.”

 

She wiped off her blade on a flesh pod nearby as best she could, leaving its skin smeared with red before she sheathed it.  Then she clanked her back against the wall a few feet away from Saraven.  She'd love to sit and rest, but it took too much effort to quickly stand wearing plate armor.  No telling what might rush down the tunnel next.

 

She looked down at the paralyzed mer, remembering the shame and the horror of her powerlessness.  She should not have teased him.  

 

“Thanks for that, by the way.  Your lightning bought me time to kill her,” Zudarra said, softly.

 

He could move the muscles of his face.  He managed about one half of a smile, the first time he'd tried to do it in... a year?  Had it been that long?

 

“It was my privilege,” Saraven said.  He flopped his arm again.  He could see his sword lying a couple of feet away.  If he tried he could squeeze his toes inside his boots.  He still ached all over, but that would heal fast enough when he could move.  He wasn't passing out again, that was the important thing.

 

He seemed to remember a life of considerably more dignity than he'd had since he'd met Zudarra.  He remembered a life gamely waiting for death, too.  This was, admittedly, more interesting.

 

This reminded him of something.  Aching, unable to move, slumped against hard stone.  A man's face hovered in front of him, white in the dark, pale blond hair like many Bretons had.

 

 _Hello again, little hunter._ Saraven's face grew hard and distant as images swam in front of his eyes.   _I see you're still with us.  Let's have a go at that mind of yours again.  You should give in, you know.  It will bring you such pleasure to die in my arms._

 

Zudarra had noted his twitching arm and followed his gaze to the sword on the floor.  She wondered if she should pick it up for him.  She shrugged to herself, rolling one shoulder, and looked away to pretend she didn't see.  Then the Khajiit sighed, pushed away from the wall, and walked in front of him to grab the weapon.

 

His face, when she glanced at it again, was odd.  It was the same look he'd had back in Kvatch when he dropped the bottle.

 

“Hey... Saraven?” she asked uncomfortably, straightening slowly with his longsword in hand.  Her tail tip moved in a little questioning curl.

 

Another voice was speaking, a voice that belonged also in places of darkness and danger, and yet it did not inspire him with hopeless, morbid loathing.  Saraven blinked his eyes for the first time in several seconds and was looking at Zudarra.  Muscles in his shoulders and neck unknotted.

 

 _Oh, good.  I'm only half-paralyzed and trapped in the Deadlands without any certainty of getting back to Nirn again, and there's a good chance if I pass out, my vampire will eat me._ But the relief he felt was real.

 

_MY vampire!?  What the HELLS, Saraven Gol._

 

“Still here,” he said, shaking his head.  Now he found he could open and close both hands, and he worked on shoving his way up onto his feet, leaning against the wall.  “Thanks.  Can't hang onto that damn thing today.”

 

Zudarra would no doubt take exception to the Dunmer's thoughts if she had known them.  She handed the sword off to him and moved away, pacing impatiently across the cavern while she waited for his paralysis to end.  Zudarra’s first impulse was to be annoyed with his mental infirmity.  But if she were honest with herself, her problem was somewhat similar.  Zudarra was not master of her faculties, something she had known for a long time but was only recently willing to admit to herself.

 

Weakness was inexcusable, whether in herself or in others.   _I’ll find a way to stamp it out, and he had better do the same._

 

Saraven regained control of his limbs with embarrassing slowness, quietly healing himself to dispel the distracting ache.  Zudarra did not watch, showing surprising mercy for her.  Or maybe she was still embarrassed that she'd bitten his gorget.  

 

It had been a very strange day.  

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

Kahzarku glared silently at the traitorous daughter of Mephala as she retreated, encased in her web and paralyzed from the throat down.  Every breath was a labor as his lungs struggled to inflate.  He was lightheaded from the blood loss and the slowing of his heart.  If it took him until the end of time he would hunt her and torture her slowly for her trespass.  

 

He entertained visions of himself ripping the spider limb from limb, gouging out her eyes and flaying those sweetly smiling lips from her face.  Eventually he realized that he could move his head more than a twitch.  Kahzarku wiggled his fingers, then his toes inside his boots.  Those, too, were responding.  The venom seemed to be wearing off, but he was still encased in sticky web.

 

The elbow of his daedric gauntlets flared out in a series of sharp points.  He twisted his arm the little bit that he could, slowly sawing back and forth at the strands of web.  His progress was agonizingly slow and Kahzarku expected the spider to return at any moment, but she did not, and for every inch he cut through, he could better twist his arm to reach more of the web.  His elbow ached from the repeated movement.

 

It seemed like hours before he cut enough to wiggle out his arm, and then he had to strain to cut away the web on his lower body with the claws of his armored finger tips.  When he'd sawed through the length of his prison Kahzarku leaned forward, yanking his still-trapped arm and legs against the sticky web that clung to his armor.  He popped free with a wet sound and clattered to his knees with a grunt.

 

He stomped outside to collect his axe, seeing that the portal to Nirn still stood, and wasted no time running for the iron gate.  The sentry towers were silent and the gate slowly swung open when he neared.  Kahzarku slipped through when the crack was large enough, and sprinted for the towers, face twisted in a malicious grin.  The elven mortal would fall before him yet.

 

* * *

 

 

When they were finally ready to move on, the exit wasn't far.  Just a few twists and turns ahead and they burst into the light, free of the baking heat of the caves and the stench of death.  Outside wasn't cooler by much, but at least the air was fresh; the breath of Kynareth in comparison.  Saraven felt renewed strength to step out under any sky, even the black and red hellscape of the Deadlands.

 

Two towers connected by a walkway stood in the distance.  A pillar of light rose to the hellish sky from the furthest.  A wide path cut downslope, leading to the iron gate set in the mountain.  It was still closed.  The land near the towers was mostly flat, strange red grass growing in patches were the armies did not tread, but out by the mountain it remained hilly and rocky.  They made their way closer, sprinting to natural rock formations and peeping over the top before making for the next set.  There wasn't much activity outside; a few stray clannfear roamed, but they were easily avoided.  The fresh air was like a breath of Kynareth.

 

As they came closer to the towers, they watched a dremora dragging two prisoners by the arm.  One walked obediently, desperately trying to keep up with failing legs and at times falling and being dragged through the dust.  The other was thrashing and kicking the armored daedra to no avail, but probably only succeeded in bruising himself.  The dremora didn't react at all to the bare-handed blows against his armor.  It was too far away to see very clearly, but the passive one seemed a Dunmer woman, and the fighter some species of human, both in bloody rags that had been peasant's clothes.

 

The dremora entered the closest tower, throwing the thrasher down and pinning him with his boot long enough to open the door.  Then he grabbed the man by the neck and dragged him in as he screamed and thrashed even harder.  The cries were cut off as the door ground shut.  Saraven watched with narrow red-on-red eyes, lips pressed tight together.

 

Zudarra looked to Saraven, her mouth a grim line.

 

“There's no one outside now, so we'd better make a run for the second tower.”

 

“No,” Saraven said harshly.  “Close the gate and collapse the tower on prisoners from Skingrad?”  He took two quick steps and vaulted the rock in front of them, then started for the first tower at a run, drawing his longsword.  If he waited to argue with her she might change his mind.  There were things he could live with – Galmir's thralldom was, reluctantly, one – but this was not.

 

“What are you doing!” she hissed, but leaped after him and caught up quickly.  She considered grabbing Saraven and running for the second tower; she was certainly strong enough and fast enough to do it, but he'd probably kick up a fuss and draw unwanted attention.

 

And he'd never forgive her, and hate her more than he already did.

 

Zudarra growled under her breath, cursing the Dunmer's idiotic hero complex.  This was the wrong choice.  But she unsheathed her greatsword as she loped beside him and soon they stood before the arched double doors of the tower.  Even through the thick stone she could hear wails of anguish.

 

“Get ready,” she said, and pried open the toothy doors at the base of the tower.

 

The configuration of this tower was new.  Instead of a fiery basin in the center and doors leading to rooms in the outer ring, this tower was one massive, open space.  The stone was gray-white instead of black.  Best for displaying blood stains, Zudarra thought.  Tall cages like the ones they had found themselves in not too long ago lined the walls, some on the floor and some hanging from diagonal stone buttresses jutted from the upper wall to support a circular walkway above them.  These walkways ringed the entire tower all the way up, with more cages on each level and no obvious way of reaching them.  There were no stairs or ramps.  Pale red, thick frosted windows and the occasional brazier lit every level of the tower.  

 

The ghastly scent of death and excrement mixed with terror hit them as soon as the doors opened.  Every cage in the room was packed full of people, some untouched and rattling the bars as they wailed, and others so horribly mutilated they would surely be dead within the hour.  An Argonian with blackened stumps at the ends of his arms gazed brokenly from behind the blood-slicked bars of his cage.  A disemboweled body was slumped in another, intestines trailing across the floor several feet away and shut in the door.  Every lucid prisoner in the room seemed to turn their hollow eyes on the door as it opened, but some were sobbing so hard they didn't notice.

 

In the center of the room was a circular platform covered in holes.  Massive, blood-stained stone spikes rose from the floor through these holes.  A Bosmer was impaled on one of them, belly up, blood from his open mouth dried across his face and sightless eyes staring upside-down in Zudarra's direction.  Several corpses lay on the platform, twisted around the spikes or on the floor beside it.  It seemed as if the dremora had made sport of dropping prisoners from an upper level with the intention of impaling them.

 

Equidistant around the platform, four sets of gears were built into the floor.  On the far end of the room the dremora had stooped to shove both his prisoners into a previously empty cage with his foot.  He held a mace in his hand and both of them were unconscious; probably he was finally forced to club them to get them into the cage.  Even that broken Dunmer would have put up a fight after seeing the state of the others in the room.  He didn't seem to notice the door had opened under the awful racket of the screaming prisoners.

 

Zudarra had seen many unpleasant things in her short life; had brought death to others without mercy, had sucked dry the infirm until empty husks remained.  But nothing in her life could rival the horror of what she saw in that room.  Suddenly dizzy, she took her free hand from the door to brace against her thigh.  The door started to crawl shut.

 

It was the smell that froze Saraven but the noise that snapped him out of it  At first it was:

 

_ Bodies piled behind a fence in the dim light from the mushrooms - _

 

_ Children stacked like logs by the furnace in the orphanage's basement, waiting their turn for the flames -  _

 

Then the screaming registered and he was looking back into a scene that was worse, the living tormented, the dead ignored.  It turned his stomach even after everything that he had seen.  He shook his head as the door started to shut in front of him.  He turned to see Zudarra looking genuinely ill, leaning over with her hand on her thigh.

 

“Easy, now,” he said.  He debated putting an arm around her in case she should fall.  She would resent it.  On the other hand, if she fell and hit her head they'd have to use another healing spell.  He risked it, strong arm around her waist, gray lips whispering in her ear.

 

“That's the new army of Skingrad you're looking at.  Let's go let them out.”

 

Zudarra instinctively began to move away from the touch, and then her mind registered that it was just Saraven.  She didn't have time to wonder why his arm was around her.

 

“Right,” she said, shoving back the closing door and darting inside, greatsword hefted and ready to strike.  She sprinted around the platform and the spikes in seconds, unavoidable guts and blood squishing under her toes.  The room had grown silent as prisoners watched, feeling hope for the first time since they'd been dragged to this hell.  The dremora turned at the unmasked sound of her clanking footsteps, mace still in hand, and raised his weapon to block her blow when she slammed the blade toward his unprotected head.  Sparks flew as daedric steel clanged, and the dremora's mace was knocked back to slam against his own face.  He tumbled backwards, stunned, falling against the cage behind him.  

 

Zudarra raised the greatsword over her head.  A heavy thunk echoed in the silent room as blade cleaved skull and brains.  The dremora didn't even have time to scream.  The body sagged down the cage and Zudarra put her foot on his chest while she yanked her sword free, flinging blood over the floor.

 

The prisoners broke into a cheer.  This was not the cheer of arena spectators.  It was a cheer of true joy and gratitude.  But Zudarra could pick out sobbing voices among them.  Some of these people were too far gone to be saved.  Some of them had probably watched loved ones expire minutes before.

 

_ Some army,  _ she thought, bending down to take up the keys that were still hanging from the door of the cage.   _ These people have been laying in their own filth for what looks like days. _

 

Saraven followed behind her, staring upward.  He saw no faces peering down.  Yet.

 

The dremora died swiftly and messily, which seemed too good for him, but there wasn't time to worry about that.  There was work to do.

 

“People of Skingrad,” he said, raising his voice as the cheer died down.  His voice was harsh, poorly suited to this use.  “We're going to the Sigil Stone, and we're going to close the gate.”  He paused to wait out another ragged cheer.  “You will have to carry your wounded, those that can still live.  Those that cannot should be ended swiftly here, so that we can burn the bodies and ensure an end to their suffering.  Is anyone here a guard, a Legionnaire, or with one of the Guilds?”

 

Grim faces stared back at him, but it was not a worse horror than they had already suffered.

 

“I'm Vellus Haldorian,” said a voice from one of the cages.  “I'm with the Legion.”  Saraven could not see the speaker, but his voice was steady, unbroken.

 

“Garva gra-Balg, Fighters Guild,” said a thickset Orc with ragged coup knots, who was still wearing armor padding.  She stood a head taller than most of the people in her cage.  One eye was black and that side of her face was swollen.

 

“Dra'zala, Mages Guild,” a gray Khajiit said softly.  She had only a loincloth and a rough wrap around her breasts, and her fur was streaked and matted.   

 

“Holds-On, Fighters Guild,” said a dull green Argonian with orange cheek patches and curly horns.  The end of one horn was broken.  He was in a different cage from the Orc, no doubt by design; they were of a height and he was even wider through his thick, muscular shoulders.  The hollow look to his muzzle said he was starving in here.  A body that size needed a lot to keep it in fighting shape.

 

A chorus of additional voices identified members of the Skingrad City Guard.  Everyone's armor and weapons had been taken.

 

“All right.  Who gets the guard's mace?” Saraven said, stalking forward to scoop up the weapon.  “Bearing in mind that you'll be in front with me.”

 

“Nobody's better with a mace than me,” said Garva.  “Give it here.”

 

“Yes'm.”  Saraven went and shoved the mace through the cage bars for her to take.  “Is anyone good with their fists, fast?”

 

A few voices spoke up.

 

“Good.  You're in back.  Call out if you see anything creeping up.”

 

Zudarra hurriedly unlocked cages while Saraven spoke, working in a circle around the room.  She fought to keep her face impassive at the sights and smells that greeted her from each cage.  The room reeked of death and blood.  Zudarra's tongue grew moist at the alluring scent, triggering a wave of revulsion.  How could this abysmal scene evoke her thirst?  Zudarra found that she couldn't look the prisoners in the eye.

 

“That contraption in the middle of the room will take you to the upper levels,” a prisoner called down from above.  When she was finished unlocking the cages of the lower room, Zudarra inspected the platform and found a lever on the floor beside it.  Before touching it, she hoisted the corpse of the Bosmer from the spike.  A rotting stench hit her when he was raised, something brown and wet glooping onto the floor from his wound.  Others came to help her clear the bodies from the platform, laying them down by the entrance.  A few voices sobbed softly at the gruesome work, but most were quiet.  They seemed to understand that their lives now depended on holding themselves together and doing what had to be done, no matter how uncomfortable.

 

The gears in the floor started clanking when the lever was thrown, and with a rusty squeak the platform began to rise from the spikes, carried by an iron pillar that rose from the floor.  Zudarra's claws dug into the stone as it rattled its way to the next level, where she unlocked those cages.  The process was completed on three more floors, and soon they had amassed a crowd of fighters at least a hundred strong, with almost as many corpses to carry, and plenty of wounded survivors.

 

Saraven moved among those on the lower level, making sure the walking wounded were paired up with the hale.  His nostrils felt half-stunned by the horrible odor, and he fought other images away as he concentrated on the dreadful here and now.

 

A human man tugged at his mail sleeve as he passed a cage, a man not out of his twenties.  His face was haggard, eyes swollen as though he had not slept in a week.  “Please, Sir,” he said quietly.  “It's my wife.  Someone has to, and I – I can't.”

 

Saraven turned to look past him.  A pretty young woman lay against one side of the cage, eyes glazed and unseeing.  Her hair was dark brown and her eyes were still a vivid blue.  She was still breathing, but the wounds on her legs were crawling with some kind of dreadful worms, spinier than Nirn's maggots.  Pus oozed around them, adding to the stench of waste; she had obviously been unable to move for days.

 

“All right,” he said.  “Look away.”  He stepped past the young man, knelt, and ran the longsword through her heart.  She hiccoughed once, that was all.  Saraven wiped the sword on a corner of her shirt, as gently as possible.  Then he moved out of the cage to rest a hand briefly on the man's shoulder.  “Bring her out,” he said, then turned to Zudarra as she returned to the lower level.  

 

“Burn them in here,” Zudarra said quietly to the Dunmer.  It was too morbid to say, but a good number of them would be impossible to drag out to the lava ocean without them falling apart or spilling their guts over the ground.  They didn't have time to deal with the sheer number of them, time that was better spent trying to help the living.  Saraven nodded.  

 

“Everyone, bring your dead to this side of the room.  A pyre is all we can offer them, but we will see that it's done, that no one is left behind alive or dead.  Is there a priest or priestess of the Divines here?”

 

“I serve Julianos,” said an old man.  He was still alive and upright, a sturdy Imperial with a face like tanned leather.  He had the remains of a white tunic on, beltless and torn.  “I can speak over them.”

 

“Good.  Anyone who was of a different faith, say your own words.  Be brief.  We have far to go.”

 

Saraven helped to carry the bodies, smearing his mail with blood and worse things.  When they were piled together at one end of the room he made sure everyone stood back a few feet – many still wept, but they were keeping it together, they did as they were told – and nodded to the old man.

 

“Our loved ones have fallen by the hands of the servants of Mehrunes Dagon,” the old priest said.  All eyes turned to where he stood to one side of the pile of bodies.  “And I want all of you to know,  even if you have been the hand of mercy to one who could not come with us, that it is Dagon who is the author of their deaths.  Bear no guilt.  We are here to see their souls on to their proper destination...”

 

Saraven did not fully absorb the words that the old priest said.  He said them with conviction, that was the important thing, not yet broken by what he had seen and endured.  Saraven stared into the pile of bodies with a face like iron, trying to push away the image of another funeral pyre.

 

Zudarra stood at the back of the crowd as the priest spoke his words, staring at the pile of bodies heaped over one another like garbage ready to burn, sightless eyes staring in all directions.  The voice of the priest became a faraway drone as she stared.  Sometimes movement caught her eye and she thought one must be alive, but it was just maggots squirming beneath skin or guts dripping down.  Most of the living had their heads bowed in prayer or their faces buried in their hands, but Zudarra couldn't tear her gaze away, fists clenched at her sides.  Thoughts hurled themselves at her mind, each a cold hook of terror that dug into her brain and wouldn't let go.

 

_ That will be me someday, if I ever fall in this place. _

 

_ That could be my mother. _

 

_ You look upon the dead and their grieving family, and still your thoughts are only for yourself. _

 

_ What will Molag Bal do to me if I fail? _

 

_ What awaits these souls in Aetherius?  Do they sleep?  Do they think?  Are they wiped clean in the Dreamsleeve?  What horror will they feel as their memories are washed from the slate of their souls, their personhood lost? _

 

Zudarra thought she was suffocating.   _ You don't need to breath, _ she told herself, but she sucked in air from her parted lips anyway.  It was never enough to fill her lungs.  It never brought a feeling of relief, yet she was still alive.   _ My soul is trapped in this cold, undead vessel.  My heart doesn't beat.  What am I?! _  The room was spiraling around her now.  

 

The priest had finished speaking.   A few people whispered other words, mostly Argonians and Khajiit, one or two others who had probably secretly worshiped Azura or Meridia.  No one was prepared to condemn at a moment like this.  Saraven stretched out his hand and let the fire go, once and then twice.  Some of the bodies evaporated on contact, and the others went up like kindling, flames burning blue and hot as they consumed shit and methane.  Smoke rose upward to fill the upper tower.

 

Zudarra turned away just as the bodies went up in flames, the heat and the light a pain against her skin, the stench of burning flesh inescapable.

 

It surprised Saraven to see the Khajiit turn from the pyre.  He forgot how young she really was.  She had not had time to inure herself to mortal death, to become indifferent to every other creature.  Perhaps she never would.  He almost believed it now.  He needed to.  There was work to be done, and he couldn't stop to worry any more if he had done wrong to keep a vampire by him all this time.

 

When the bodies were so far consumed that Saraven judged they could not be used to form floors or railings or any other twisted daedric purpose, he moved toward the door, raising his voice again.  “Those with weapons, up front with me.  Unarmed fighters in back.  Civilians in the middle.  Move fast.  If someone near you falls, pick them up, don't walk over them.  Panic will kill us all.  You are Skingrad.  Be strong.”   Zudarra listened mutely as Saraven spoke his instructions with authority, something she never would have been able to do.  Her face hardened with the mask of a determined warrior when he had finished.  She would fight.  She would  _ live _ . 

 

He led the way out of the tower and into the red light of the Deadlands' burning day.  The Orc Garva huffed like a big dog beside him as she scented the clearer air, and there were other sounds of relief as people moved away from the smoke and stench.  He hoped it would renew their strength.  They were still some way from water and rest.

 

Saraven felt stronger than he had an hour ago, never mind that his arms ached from carrying bodies, and he now certainly smelled worse.  His body would not fail him when something had to be done, away from uncertainty and inner dreads.  This was the kind of work that had kept him alive thirty years.  This was where he knew himself.

 

“We're going to the other tower,” he raised his voice to tell them.  “Be ready for clannfear and scamps, keep them off the civilians.  If you kill a dremora, get their weapon - if not for you, for whoever's next to you.  Sometimes they have scrolls.  Pass that down the line.”

 

There were murmurs behind him as the information moved on through the group, and he turned his steps toward the second tower, longsword in his hand, Zudarra and the Fighters at his side.  The survivors of Skingrad came behind them, a breathing mass of grieving mortality.  Some of them were beginning to be angry.  He could feel the growls and mutters as much as hear them.

 

They fought their way up the second tower more easily than Zudarra expected.  When Saraven first said he was going to free the survivors, Zudarra imagined herself babysitting a bunch of incompetent weaklings while trying to keep herself alive.  Garva by herself was a one-woman army, rampaging through dremora with a single-minded hatred.  With every slain dremora another fighter was able to take up a weapon.  At one point they were ambushed by a pair clannfear from behind, but the daedra were beaten to death in seconds by the unarmed mob.

 

They were nearing the upper dome now, scrolls of silence at the ready in two warriors’ hands in preparation for the mages Saraven and Zudarra knew to be waiting at the top.  The mob would overwhelm any dremora on the lower level while Zudarra ran for the sigil stone.  It had been a good strategy last time, and made sense still, with one amendment: Zudarra would knock the stone from the pillar with her sword instead of her hand.

 

* * *

 

 

Kahzarku was beginning to believe the mortals had died in the caves.  Perhaps the spider daedra had hunted them down after all.  He paced in the Sigillum Sanguis, waiting for his moment of glory, anger and disappointment festering more with every passing moment that they did not come.  The officer of the Keep watched the disgraced ex-Kynreeve disinterestedly from behind the slitted eyes of his helm, content with the knowledge that he and his men would surely be able to keep two weakened mortals from destroying the gate.  He kept his mages stationed on the upper level around the sigil stone.

 

A low rumble of footsteps slowly rose above the drone of the pillar.  Kahzarku stopped his pacing, tilting his head to listen, eyes squinting in curiosity.  Had the army returned from Skingrad?  He looked over at the ramp to the lower level just in time to see a handful of mortal faces emerging over the top.

 

Saraven Gol rose into view, longsword in hand, and he recognized that same dremora again in the split second that he caught sight of the two armored creatures on the lower level.

 

“Forward, Skingrad!” he shouted, and charged forward with a hundred screaming fighters behind him.

 

Green balls of magicka whirred over her head as Zudarra launched herself forward.  A hundred mortals could see what she was; not a single one of them could have moved this fast on the best days of their lives.

 

She heard the dying screams of dremora behind her as they were overwhelmed by the mob, the angry shouts of human and mer nearly drowning out everything else.  A black-robed dremora came at Zudarra with a knife at the top of the stairs but she knocked him aside without slowing.  He shrieked as he pitched over the side, skull smashing against the walkway below.  Like a child playing stickball in the field, Zudarra leapt from the stairs to the balcony with sword wound up tight behind her shoulder.  The blade sliced through fire and impacted the sigil stone hard enough to crack the side, sending it rocketing across empty air as the explosive power of the beam knocked Zudarra off her feet.

 

Kahzarku never even knew what had killed him.  He dove for the gray-skinned mer as the mortal crowd swarmed around him, but a blade came at his face from the side and everything went black before his body crumpled, his final hope of redemption wasted.  Saraven grinned horribly into the dremora's face as he ran him through, but the creature was already dead, the top of his skull sliced cleanly away.

 

Above him Saraven heard the thunderous crack of Zudarra's blade striking the sigil stone, and he raised his sword triumphantly as the ground began to shake.  People around him shouted in alarm and terror, not realizing what was happening as they saw the ceiling start to collapse above them.

 

“Don't be afraid!” he shouted.  “We're going back!”

 

The tower shook, great crumbling chunks of ceiling and wall slamming into the floor and ripping through the membrane below.  Zudarra didn't bother to pick herself up from where she landed, instead staring up to watch the inescapable destruction that rained all around her.  Finally the floor gave way; she felt herself falling, weightless, as a last explosion rocked the air and then they were all dumped into the blinding white. 

 


	11. Chapter 11

Janus, Count Hassildor, stared down from the wall of Castle Skingrad.  Smoke rose from the city.  Everything that could burn had been burned.  The walls were stone, but their supports were timber, and many of the smaller buildings had collapsed into rocks and rubble.  

 

Bitter, impotent fury churned in his gut.  Not all that he had done, all that he had become, could save his city from an invasion from Oblivion.  Molag Bal roared in his dreams that Tamriel was his, not Dagon's, but he did not fully understand what it meant, and whom should he ask?  Not the Mages Guild, whose survivors were scattered through the town hiding in attics and basements.  Not the clergy of Julianos, from whom only the Castle chaplain definitely survived.  

 

People were camped out in the courtyard below him.  He had not fed in days and could parse out each beating heart; the face under his broad velvet hood was terrifyingly cadaverous.  He could not go out to seek those worthy of losing their lives to his thirst, and the dungeons were empty of any but refugees.  Thank the Divines Rona was gone now.  She had not lived to see their city burn.

 

The Count was not an exceptionally imposing man, broad-shouldered but not outstandingly tall.  In better times he dressed luxuriantly, emphasizing that his was the wealthiest County in all of Tamriel.  Tonight he wore a green velvet cloak over a plain linen tunic and woolen leggings.  He preserved the chain of his office, that any who saw him from below would know their Count was still watching over his people.  

 

Normally he saw no one, and no one saw him; Hal-Liurz, who knew his secret, took care of everything that involved interfacing with other people.  Now he had sent the Argonian to bed lest she collapse from exhaustion, and these were unusual times.  He had failed Skingrad.  The Castle well would water these comparatively few refugees for a long time yet, but their food supply would not last many days more.  Soon they would begin to wither as he had begun to wither.

 

A noise from below attracted his attention.  In the distance he could still see the accursed red eye of the gate to the Deadlands outside the city gate, distant from here, but visible.  Now it was collapsing in on itself, the crimson membrane shriveling to nothing as the arch fell to pieces.  Something tiny and multifarious was falling from the air -

 

People.

 

Someone has closed the gate.

 

He had learned not to be a man of strong passions.  That was not the way for a vampire to survive.  But now hope surged in his dead breast as he turned from the wall, raising his voice in command.  

 

“Captain Artellian!  Rally your men, we're retaking the town!”

 

* * *

 

 

Saraven landed hard on one knee in the dirt, sword held out to one side.  Bodies rained down around him, landing with startled grunts and outcries.  It was dark, the crimson sky overhead resolving into a cloudy night.  Saraven scrambled to his feet and turned to look at the dremora camp, where things seemed to have settled into some kind of order in his absence.  Daedra were staring in startlement and incomprehension at the spiny ruin where the gate had been, at a mass of armed mortals already struggling to their feet.

 

“Civilians, stay with the wounded,” Saraven said.  “Everyone else to the camp!  Skingrad is yours!”

 

A roar of approbation rose from around him as the survivors of Skingrad saw their chance to enact further revenge on their tormentors.  As the crowd surged forward he looked for Zudarra, trying to find the big Khajiit in the mass of people.

 

Zudarra was fully conscious this time when she clanked to the ground on her rear, nose singed from the explosion and tailbone aching from the fall but in good condition otherwise.  She was on her feet in a tick, sword on her shoulder as she ran with the others for the dremora camp.  She saw Saraven's face in the crowd, grinned and nodded to the Dunmer – _We did it!_

 

Saraven lifted his chin at her proudly – _Yes we did_ – before turning his attention to the dremora ahead.

A quick volley of arrows rained on the unarmored survivors, sending a few to the dirt before they even reached their enemies, and in the next moment a great clamor filled the air as the tide of mortals met the impromptu rank of dremora.  Weapons clashed and voices shouted in rage and in anguish when one among them fell.  Zudarra's blade sought the mages, who stood back picking off targets occupied with their armored brethren.  Most of them didn't even notice the blur that closed in from the side until her serrated blade was biting through their spine.  She picked them off one by one before returning to the fray.

 

The air was thick with the tang of blood and intelligent thought gave way to bestial fervor.  Every droplet spent, every daedric scream, and every pounding heart among the hundreds around her became Zudarra's entire universe.  Slash, hack, whirl, and leap she tore through the enemy ranks until her limbs screamed under the strain of extreme exertion, and still she did not stop.

 

Saraven closed in with the front rank of warriors, and then he had to raise his sword to fend off an armored dremora with a mace and a shield.  Hilt clashed with hilt, and then he ducked under the daedra's arm to stab at the padding there.  This creature had not fought him before, was not as clever as the one he had met twice; the maneuver worked perfectly and he heard a scream of rage before the dremora fell dead.  Then it was on to the next.  And then the next.  It was harder fighting in a crowd of people, having always to stop and check if the person at your elbow was friend or foe.  It absorbed all of his concentration for an amount of time that he could not afterward measure.  He was dimly aware of the enemy mages dying with sudden, swift fury, and knew it must be Zudarra.  He took hits to his mail again and again, bruises skin-deep or to the bone, until his body below the neck throbbed in one entirety of pain.

 

He never noticed what was happening on the bridge, far away and above them.  He did notice the disturbance from inside the city beyond the camp.  A body of Imperials and Bretons were charging forward from the gates of Skingrad, men with the white crescent moon on a field sable sewn to the chests of their mail shirts.  At their head was a man in a green velvet cloak, clothed but unarmored, without a weapon in his hands.  Saraven caught only the briefest glimpse of him when he paused to shout in a stentorian baritone,

 

“Skingrad!  The Empire!”

 

After that he became an invisible blur, as fast as Zudarra or even faster.  Dremora literally exploded into flames in his wake, into ash, into dust.

 

It was over not long after that.  The dremora did not break, did not flee.  Quarter was not asked nor offered.  They died to the last daedra.  

 

And then there came a moment when Saraven stood in the midst of a ring of dead dremora, sword at the guard against a blow that never came.  Holds-On still stood beside him.  Garva had fallen, an axe through her skull from behind.  The mage Khajiit faded into view not far off, panting, filthy, but alive.  There were other faces that he recognized among both the living and the dead.  Everything hurt.  He could not remember a time when it had not.  Now he fell to his knees to clean the blade, gasping for breath.

 

Zudarra wrenched her sword from the back of a daedric skull and whirled, looking for her next target and finding none.  She stood in a field of broken bodies and black steel.  She had been peripherally aware of the Skingrad forces when they arrived, now mixed in with the others from the Deadlands.  All around her weary survivors scoured the piled corpses, putting down the stray daedra who still twitched on the ground or dragging the wounded from the battlefield.

 

As the red fog of rage cleared from her mind, Zudarra realized she wasn't heaving.  She'd forgotten to breathe through all of it.  Her torso shuddered as she sucked in a sudden breath, and next she noticed the pain.  Several long gashes decorated her face, the fur of her head and neck matted with blood – only some of which was her own.  Zudarra barely remembered when she had gained them.  

 

The Count zipped to a halt in front of Zudarra, crimson eyes glowing from beneath the hem of his hood.  She was aware of being viewed from the inside, at a great distance, by something vast; there was no attempt to gain control, but there was certainly an impression of a great eye watching from far off.  She did not know how to resist the intrusion into her mind.  His power was ancient, absolute.  She steeled her face instead, staring at him impassively with a lifted chin.

 

“You must be Zudarra the Bloody,” he said.  “Word reached us from Kvatch before the gate opened.”

 

“Yes,” she said.  “But it wasn't just me – Saraven!”  She suddenly remembered.  Her head jerked to the side, frantically searching the battlefield for that familiar, perpetually frowning face.  Had the Dunmer finally sacrificed his life in his quest against evil?  But no, she spotted him quickly enough, the only mithral-clad figure in sight.  If she still had a pulse, Zudarra would think her heart skipped a beat.  She pointed with her sword and turned back to the vampire.  “Saraven Gol was with me.”  Her eyes dropped to the chain around his neck then, brows arching in sudden surprise.  “You are the Count of Skingrad?”

 

The Count turned his eyes to survey the weary figure of the Dunmer, who was even now climbing slowly to his feet.  He did not miss the gorget, raising one black eyebrow as he turned back to Zudarra.

 

“Yes.  I am Janus, Count Hassildor.  Ordinarily I would not leave the Castle to be seen, but these are desperate times, and many of my people guessed or supposed before they knew.  Will you accept healing at my hands?”  His tone was unchanged, imperious, but the sensation of distant scrutiny faded rapidly away.  Behind him, the guardsmen were helping to carry the wounded toward the city and lay out Skingrad's new dead for burial.

 

“Of course, but these wounds are minor.  Your power might be better used on others.”  Zudarra said.  “We rescued prisoners from the Deadlands.  Some are in very poor shape.”

 

“It will be, though that statement does you credit.  It is seldom that I hear such words from one of my own kind.”  He reached out a hand toward her, fingers splayed, and healing power spiraled up around her.  Then he turned to speed away toward those who were carrying the wounded, cape flapping behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

Saraven looked around belatedly for Zudarra.  Every time he had seen her take a hit flashed across his mind, and suddenly it occurred to him that it was completely possible she was dead.  His heart jumped into his throat as he looked quickly around, and then he spotted the tall armored figure talking to the man in the velvet cloak.  He took a deep breath, trying to clear the dizziness he suddenly felt.

 

 _What was that about?  You know she's nearly indestructible.  If grabbing a sigil stone with bare hands and being bitten by a spider daedra both didn't kill her, probably nothing will._ He turned and limped over that way as the man in the cloak vanished in a blur of indistinguishable motion, leaving behind a diminishing helix of blue magicka.  

 

Something felt swollen and wrong on the left side of his chest, making breathing harder.  He vaguely remembered being hit there with a mace.  The sliding feeling was probably broken ribs.  He wondered why it didn't hurt more.  He raised a hand to heal himself, but nothing happened.   _Out.  Probably out before the battle started, I don't remember using lightning._ Zudarra turned to watch as Saraven limped over, ears still and forward.  

 

Zudarra was glad to see Saraven alive, to her astonishment.  But she was weary and hungry.  Blood saturated the ground, wrapping her in a fog of thirst, and Saraven's approaching heartbeat seemed to pound in her brain alongside a pulsing headache.  A mad frenzy had kept her fighting, but whatever possessed her was gone and Zudarra felt ready to collapse.  

 

“Still standing,” he said breathlessly as he stopped next to the vampire, watching blue healing power appear seemingly at random in the distance.  “This was well done, Zudarra.  You should be proud.”

 

She smiled cockily but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

 

“My reputation has grown faster in a week than it did in a year of arena battles.  Anyway, you look like shit,” she said, wiping her sword on the grass and sheathing it.  “It's too bad you didn't hobble over just a moment before.  That was Count Hassildor.  Should've saved the heal for you.”  She raised a hand to Saraven and a little wisp of blue light struggled out.  Zudarra couldn't remember it clearly, but she must have been healing as she fought.  “Sorry, that's the best I can do.”

 

Saraven shut his eyes as the spell hit.  Things went snick-snick inside his chest as bones knit, and then the power ran out.  The pain was certainly less, and he felt more alert.  He inhaled deeply as he opened his eyes.  

 

“Thank you,” he said.  Now that he could see her more clearly – many of the guardsmen were carrying torches – she looked as if she had lost weight just in the last day, fur sculpted over the bones of her face.

 

“You're not looking so great yourself,” Saraven said quietly.  “Let's go find Galmir.  If he and I each take a turn we should be able to help, at least.  I'm thirsty, too.”  His throat felt like sandpaper, dryness exacerbated by a lot of shouting to which he was poorly suited.  He clapped her on the back, not very hard, and turned to start for the hill, stifling a groan.  To be near all this blood must be a torment for her.  He was risking Galmir's life by that suggestion, and probably his own as well, but better either of them than the wounded and grieving of Skingrad.   _Julianos, we saved your city.  Get us through the night._

 

A cool hand landed on Saraven's shoulder, gripping gently to stop him.

 

“No, Saraven,” Zudarra said wearily.  “You never stop, do you?  You're not fully healed.  Go to the castle with the others, get water and healing.  I'll collect Galmir and the horses and meet up with you.”  Rejecting an offer of Saraven's blood was one of the hardest things she had ever done, but Zudarra knew it was right.  “I'm thirsty but I'll live.  My kind can go without feeding for a long time, you of all people should know that.”  She grinned weakly.  “Besides, maybe the Count would share his thrall with me.  A vampire of his power ought to have a few.”

 

Saraven stared at her for a moment, surprised and touched, white eyebrows climbing.  Finally he nodded.  He would not devalue this newfound selflessness by rejecting it.

 

“Also know it hurts more when you're younger,” he said.  “You're a better vampire than I have ever known, Zudarra the Bloody.”  Privately he thought that an elder vampire was roughly as likely to share a thrall as a house cat was to share a fish, but he had been wrong in several ways over the last week.  Maybe he was wrong again.  He turned to move toward the city, following the guards.

 

Completely flustered, Zudarra stared after him with head tilted and one ear flicked back, mouth dropping open stupidly and closing again.  It was the closest thing to a compliment she'd ever heard from someone who wasn't her mother or a fan, someone she personally knew.  Did that mean he didn't hate her?

 

 _A “better vampire” doesn't mean “good person.”  Stop pretending you care what he he thinks._  She turned and stalked away, somehow more upset than she had been before.  A flurry of strange emotions whirled around inside, emotions she was far too tired to analyze or acknowledge just then.  She pushed them away to the vault to be dealt with “later.” 

 

* * *

 

 

It was a long walk to the castle.  People spoke to Saraven once or twice, and he answered, but he afterward had no clear memory of what was said.  It was all one blending ache.  Probably they asked him about Zudarra, about the gate.  As they drew near the great bridge to Castle Skingrad he found himself walking beside a survivor that he recognized, the old priest of Julianos.

 

“Where's your friend, the vampire?” the priest asked him.

 

“Zudarra,” Saraven said.  “Her name is Zudarra.”

 

The old man nodded.  He looked as tired as Saraven felt, dark splotches under his swollen eyes.  “And you are Saraven Gol.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I'm Brother Marius Casterian.”

 

Saraven nodded as they started out onto the bridge.  It was incredibly high above the ground, but it was also wide enough for five men to walk abreast; it did not feel precarious.  The night dropped away on either side into darkness and distance, and the torchlit battlements of the castle loomed up ahead, the portcullis grinding its way open as they drew nearer.  Saraven blinked to clear the grit from his eyes, trying to bring it into focus.

 

“You did well inside that gate, Brother Marius,” he said.  “I hope that it brought some of them comfort.”

 

“I hope so as well,” said Brother Marius.  “Are you a devout man?”

 

“Less than I ought,” Saraven said.  “I've returned to the Nine since the gates opened.  D'you think the blood of Akatosh will save us?”

 

Marius was silent for a moment.  Then he shook his head.  “Perhaps you and Zudarra will save us, Master Gol.  Perhaps the Hero of Kvatch – I believe he is called Got-No-Home - will.  It probably will not be Akatosh.  The divines do not act in Nirn in such a way.”

 

Saraven nodded.  They proceeded with the other weary survivors through the great gate and into the warmth and noise of the courtyard.  Tents were ranged around the edges, and crude privies had been built along one wall, probably just buckets that would have to be emptied over the battlements.  Families were being reunited, mothers and fathers returned to their children, husbands who had given up their wives for lost, wives who had never expected to see their husbands.  He looked at his feet as he moved forward.  He did not want to see the faces of the ones whose loved ones were not coming back.  There was already a chow line being set up, people hurrying to see to the needs of the newly arrived.

 

Presently he became aware that a voice was speaking his name.  He stopped, looking around.  A young Khajiit stood there.  He had a rich red-brown coat, solid fading to stripes on tail, hands and muzzle.  He wore a green velvet tunic and tailored trousers.

 

“Excuse me,” he said, bowing.  “The Count would like for you to come with J'zalla, please.  He acts as junior majordomo while Hal-Liurz is resting.”

 

“My friend Zudarra will be coming before long,” he said.

 

“Yes, J'zalla has been told to see to her needs as well.  Do not worry.  She is as safe here as you are.”  He gestured along the wall.  Saraven turned to walk with him.  “Saraven Gol is injured?”

 

“Bruised,” he said.

 

“J'zalla can heal a little.”  The Khajiit reached out to gently touch his wrist.  His fingers glowed gently blue, and Saraven felt the pain smooth away.  He straightened as he walked.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“It is nothing for the one who has brought us back our sons and daughters,” J'zalla said seriously. His eyes were large and green.  He was young to be talking of sons and daughters.  Perhaps he spent a lot of time around people much older than he was.

 

He led Saraven to a small side door that led to what he suspected were servants' quarters.  There was an honest-to-gods indoor bathroom with an in-built pump, and though the water was cold, there was a tub behind a three-part hinged screen.  When he got out of it the water was nearly black.  His clothes and armor were gone and a set of linens and soft shoes had been left in their place, draped over a chair.  Saraven stared at them suspiciously.  His gorget and bracers were under them, which showed a delicate understanding that he had not expected.  He put everything on and went to look out of the door.  J'zalla was waiting in the hallway to lead him to a small room with a small bed, a table, and a big pitcher of water and a big pile of food.

 

“Door will be unlocked from outside, but you may bar it thus from in here,” J'zalla said, demonstrating the lock.  “If you need anything, ring this bell.”  It was made of iron, a heavy thing sitting on a small table by the door.

 

Saraven ate and drank as much as he could hold - slowly, his stomach felt shriveled and disused.  Then he nudged off his shoes and climbed under the covers.  He sank rapidly out of all knowledge and into warm darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

The horses were untouched.  Galmir had pulled out a bedroll and was sleeping nearby, face scrunched and hands tucked up under his chin next to the remains of a fire.  A muscle in his cheek was twitching, but he didn't wake as the Khajiit approached.

 

For several hours the Bosmer had debated what to do.  Sometimes the fog in his mind seemed to clear and he wondered why he had followed two complete strangers off to gods only knew where, and thought maybe he should leave before they returned.  But where was he to go, all alone in a strange land?  He had no home to return to.  Zudarra was the only living person he could trust, and Saraven seemed like a decent sort.  So Galmir waited, anxiously watching the gate they had disappeared into for any signs of activity until he was too tired to stand anymore.

 

Zudarra stood over him now, the sweet aroma of daedric blood still clinging to her fur and fueling her hunger.  Maybe she had told an untruth to Saraven.  Maybe she would feed after all, just not on the Dunmer.  Saraven truly was a hero.  He rallied the survivors in the Deadlands.  He lead them to victory when she would have left them to die.  He needed his strength more than Zudarra.  He... deserved it.

 

She dropped to her knees with a short clank, reaching out with one hand to touch the sleeping Bosmer's shoulder.  She ought to calm him, lest he wake as she fed, and deepen their bond.  She leaned forward, fangs brushing against his neck, and delved into his defenseless mind.

 

_Mileth smiled sweetly, shining black eyes scrunching above her rosy cheeks.  She had dimples on either side of her lips when she really smiled, and that's how Galmir knew it was true.  She was kind and gentle and loving; everything Zudarra was not. She flipped her tangle of long blonde hair over her shoulder and turned to him, reaching out to embrace Galmir in her slender arms.  A golden, shining emotion flowed freely from his heart to spill down every limb, filling him with a heavy warmth every time she was near._

 

_“Someday soon we'll have saved up enough, Mileth.  Then I won't have to fish and you won't have to work for Thaeril anymore.  Think of it!  Our own tavern.  We'll have everything we ever dreamed of once the gold starts rolling in.”  His fingers laced with hers.  They would finally have the space for children, the means to bring them up well.  Their children would not be poor as they had been._

 

_Fire, black smoke, a raging pyre that lit the sky as the highest boughs of Falinesti burned.  The forest screamed in the voices of animal and mer alike.  Galmir ran toward the city, fighting against the crowds that fled, lungs burning and heart pounding in his ears.  His black eyes were transfixed on the blaze high above him.  A creak and a thunderous snap rang in his ears.  The graht-oak was falling, charred timber snapping and smashing the lower branches.  The homes and business carved and grown into its twisting limbs collapsed and burned._

 

_The ground rumbled violently, knocking Galmir off his feet.  Falinesti was trying to uproot itself, trying to run.  It could never outrun the fire that devoured its limbs.  He couldn't stand.  Every tremor knocked him to his knees as miles of root pulled themselves from the ground.  So Galmir crawled, tears streaking his dirty face.  He could see nothing through the tears but an orange blaze and black shapes.  He had to find her._

 

Zudarra yanked away before her fangs pierced flesh.  She didn't want to see anymore!  Why had she looked?  She ripped her bag from the saddle and fled, branches cracking as she smashed through the trees.  Her nose told her there was water nearby, and soon she heard the gentle sloshing of a slow moving river, and then she was standing at the water's edge on a flat bank.  Her paws sunk into the soft, pebbly dirt, squishing up between her bloodstained pads.  Stars glittered on its glassy surface, black under the night sky.  

 

Zudarra stripped herself of armor and padding, throwing it all unceremoniously down on the shore, and waded in nude.  The water was cool even on a warm summer night such as this, but her undead body felt no discomfort from cold.  She dunked her head under the water, angrily scrubbing at the blood in her fur.  She didn't stop until every last clod of dried grime had been carried away on the gentle current, all the while wondering what was happening to her.

 

Zudarra watched the ripples that broke her reflection.  Furious red eyes glared back at her. _Am I going crazy?_ she wondered.   _What happened back in the Deadlands?  I thought this was all behind me.  I thought I was strong._  She was too tired, too hungry to sort through it all, but it had to be done soon.  She was losing herself, like water slipping through an open palm.  At the center of it all was Saraven, looking through her like glass.  His tired eyes bore into her soul, past the facade of power and strength.  Everything he said of her was true.

 

She was afraid to die.  She let herself become a monster to assuage that fear. _No, that wasn't right._  Zudarra had been a monster long before she became a vampire.  The death of her real parents, the Breton in the alley, Vandalion; none of it aroused any real sorrow or guilt.  Why couldn't she feel as others felt?  Why didn't she care?

 

Zudarra dragged herself out of the water and sat down on the shore, waiting to dry before dressing in fresh underclothes and padding from her saddle bag.  At least the scent of blood was gone and her mind was a bit clearer.  All of her questions didn't seem to matter anymore.  Nothing mattered but her continued survival.  All of it would make sense someday, in a place far away from blood and death and fire.

 

When she finally returned, Galmir was sitting on his bed and staring at the remains of last night's fire.  The horizon was gray; dawn would break soon.  She had dressed in the parts of her armor she could strap on by herself and carried the rest.  Galmir looked up as soon as he heard her, weary face breaking into a smile.

 

“I thought it was you I heard!  I'm glad you're alive.  But, Saraven..?”

 

“He's fine,” Zudarra said crisply, not meeting the Bosmer's eyes.  “He's at Castle Skingrad, and that's where we're going.  Pick up the things and grab his horse.”

 

She had to show Galmir how to saddle the horses and how to help her into her armor, but he followed orders eagerly and without complaint.  Within the hour they were at the castle gate, still open for any survivors in the city who might find their way in now that the siege had ended.  Zudarra had hoisted Galmir onto Shadow's back and walked by herself, the reigns of each horse in either hand.  Ves seemed to be used to her now, and came without trouble.  The courtyard was crawling with guards, most of the survivors asleep in their tents by now.  She figured she would let Saraven get his sleep and find him in the morning.

 

“Excuse me,” she said to a passing guard.  “Where should we put our horses?”

 

He turned to answer, mouth open, and then stared at her with his jaw slack for a second.  Then he quickly shook his head and saluted her, fist to his chest.

 

“Ma'am!  I'll take care of them.  The Castle has its own stables.  J'zalla's probably on his way down, he's been watching for you from the wall.”  And indeed, a rusty brown Khajiit with stripes on his muzzle, tail and hands was moving toward them, steps calm and certain as he moved through the guards.  They moved aside to let him pass, though most of them outweighed him by a couple of big flour sacks or more.

 

He bowed as the guard took the reins to lead the horses away.

 

“Good evening, Ma'am.  This one is J'zalla, junior majordomo of Castle Skingrad.  He has been asked to see to your needs while you stay with us.  Are Zudarra or her friend yet injured?”

 

 _So they're giving me the hero's welcome._ Zudarra wouldn't argue with that.

 

“No, neither of us are, although Galmir here needs to eat.”  He didn't, really.  The Bosmer had most likely eaten already as per her orders and she had provisions to last a few days more.  But Zudarra would never turn down a free meal for her thrall, especially anything likely to be of higher quality than she carried.  Zudarra walked along with the Khajiit to the castle.  “Do you know if a Dunmer named Saraven Gol is around?”

 

“Yes, Ma'am,” J'zalla said, leading her into the side door.  It opened onto a hallway lit by candles in sconces, rows of identical doors.  One had a picture of a tub carved into a plaque hanging beside it.  “He is in the room next to yours.  J'zalla thinks that he is sleeping.  The bath is just here, if either of you need to make use of it.”  His tone remained deferential, ears high, and he did not so much as twitch a whisker at the Bosmer.

 

“Thank you.  I won't wake him.  Galmir, go on and wash up,” Zudarra said.  It was almost an embarrassment to have the filthy Bosmer following her, but then, there were plenty of people in worse condition tonight.  

 

“Yes, Ma'am,” he agreed, departing for the bathroom.  Zudarra was glad to have the sad little man out of her sight.  She turned to open the door J'zalla had indicated as being hers.

 

A young man was looking up at her from a table across from the double bed by the time the door was all the way open, eyes held very wide by way of indicating he was definitely awake and alert and had definitely been awake and alert before he heard the door start to open.  On the table beside him was a pitcher full of water, a clear decanter that looked like it held some kind of wine or fruit juice, and a pile of fruit.  His hair was dark and his eyes were blue, and under his linen clothes muscle bulged and rolled.

 

There was a cot against the wall beside the bed, with a pillow and a clean blanket.  Either J'zalla had magical powers of precognition, or he had sent a servant ahead when he spotted her and Galmir.

 

The young man stood up quickly and saluted, fist to his chest.  “Ma'am!”

 

“J'zalla will be just down the hall if she should need anything,” J'zalla said behind her.  “This is Orphean.  He knows which is the right door.”  The door shut behind her with a discreet click.

 

Zudarra glanced back at the retreating Khajiit with the hint of an amused smile.  To find a man waiting in her quarters would have been quite indecent in any other circumstances, but the Count was one who intimately understood her needs.  She sauntered toward him in a wide circle, hands on her hips, studying him from head to toe.

 

“You know why you are here?” she asked, incredulous.  Of course he did.  The entire castle staff must know of the Count's condition.  Not even her fellow Khajiit batted an eye at her obscenely long fangs.

 

He nodded.  “Yes, M'm.  I'm not afraid if it hurts.  I heard what you did, and I'm proud to serve my city if it helps you.  Just tell me what to do.”  She could hear his pulse jump a little, but not enough to suggest real fear.  He was nervous that he would disappoint her.

 

“So you haven't actually done this before?” she asked, tilting her head.  It irked her a little that she was known as a vampire; but then, anyone who had seen her in battle tonight would know.  Her career as a gladiator would surely be over if it were common knowledge.  

 

Maybe it was time to let go of that dream.  There was no returning to the life she had known at this rate, but perhaps her elevation to war hero was a fair trade.

 

Zudarra sat down on the bed, sinking into the softness, and patted the space beside her.

 

“Sit beside me,” she said carefully.  “I can make it so that it doesn't hurt, but it's a form of mind control.  I- I'll do it however you prefer.”  It was the first time Zudarra ever offered a choice to her prey.  

 

“No, I haven't,” he said.  He moved to sit beside her.  “I'd do it for him, a lot of us would now, but he won't have it like that.  I'd rather it doesn't hurt, if it's all the same.  It'll be easier for me not to, you know, stiffen up.”  His shirt had a low, wide neck, completely exposing his throat.  The big vein beat invitingly on the side facing her.

 

Zudarra had to hold herself back from falling on his neck the moment he sat.  If he were a mindless thrall that's how she would behave; taking without warning, without asking.  This was a person with free will.  From the look of him, a skilled fighter who had probably fought daedra alongside the others.

 

“It won't hurt,” she said, reaching out to cup back of his head in her palm, gently urging his head to the side to further expose his pulsing artery.  She licked the back of her teeth in anticipation.  Already she imagined she could taste it, hot and coppery on her tongue.  Zudarra leaned forward, teeth brushing against skin as her mind entered his.  She pushed past feeble walls, replacing nervous fear with peace and joy.  His pleasure echoed in her mind as her fangs sank in.  It was nothing compared to her own ecstasy when she lifted her fangs from the wounds and sucked, furred lips pressed against clean skin.

 

She took much more than she would have from Galmir.  This Orphean was tall and strong and he would most likely never see Zudarra again after today.  He could afford the loss.  Her eyes rolled back as she drank, reveling in every drop, in the surge of strength and magicka that came bubbling up.  It pained her to pull away, but she did, still holding the man's head in her palm.

 

Little droplets ran from the punctures and Zudarra healed him with magicka replenished by his own blood, then pushed him down onto the bed as she stood.  It would be cruel to ask him to walk just now, and she didn't mind if he stayed.  

 

“Mmn.”  Orphean's eyes fluttered as he lay on his side on the bed.  “Shouldn't I...  At least move to the...”  He was unable to finish the thought, mind clouded with ecstasy and blood loss.  At last he sighed and shut his eyes.  He looked pale, but his breathing was strong and regular.  

 

Galmir returned shortly after, dressed in clean linens rather than his stained rags.  Zudarra was impressed to see that.  Nothing had been overlooked.  She ordered him to sleep on the bed beside Orphean – Galmir’s need to serve Zudarra was already too deeply ingrained for him to voice any opinions about sleeping next to a strange man – and Zudarra took the cot for herself after armoring down.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Saraven woke late, he was sure of it.  Impaled and burned bodies chased him through his dreams, screaming that it was his fault, he was too late.  He ended the night standing in a sigil room, dremora standing in a circle as they taunted him with the severed heads of mortal prisoners.  One of them had been the Orc Garva.  One had been Galmir.  One had been Lavinia.  They stared at him with wide, accusing eyes above their gaping mouths, dripping spines hanging from their necks.  

 

When he at last opened his eyes it was with a gasp of relief.  He was disoriented for several moments, trying to remember why he was in an actual bed in a warm room.  

 

_ Skingrad.  I am in Castle Skingrad.  _  He was ashamed that he had not stayed up to make sure Zudarra got here safely.  He had fallen right into bed and just assumed J'zalla would take care of it.

 

He went to check outside his door.  A stool now sat out there that had not been there before, holding his mail and padding.  They were neatly folded and clean.  He hooked it all inside to get dressed, then ate and drank from what remained on the table.  If she had not come, if he was going to have to chase her across country, he would need his strength.  He made the bed as best he could and left the clothes they had lent him folded on the coverlet.

 

Presently a strong fist banged on his door.

 

“You've got your beauty sleep, Saraven,” said Zudarra’s muffled voice.  The Saraven who promptly opened the door was fully dressed and fresh faced – as fresh as his deep-lined, perpetually tired eyes would allow.  She recovered from brief startlement and grinned at him, the troubled thoughts of last night forgotten.  Zudarra was well fed and bursting with energy now.

 

Orphean had been gone when she woke from her shallow, dreamless slumber near noon to find Galmir already up and eating breakfast at the table.  Her armor and his clothes had been cleaned and returned.  Now she was dressed and armored with Galmir in tow.  Zudarra had given the Bosmer her shoulder bag to carry, several of the uneaten fruits tucked discreetly away inside.  They shouldn't miss the food and the extra set of clothing, and didn't heroes such as themselves deserve it?

 

“You're looking better,” Saraven said.  He did not smile, but the lines around his eyes shifted in such a way as to suggest he might have been thinking about it.  “Did they feed you after all?  Morning, Galmir.”  He emerged into the hallway, armored and armed.  

 

“They did,” Zudarra answered, turning to walk with him down the hall.  “A free man wishing to serve his city, if it makes you feel any better.  I tell you, this hero business has some perks.”

 

Galmir returned Saraven's greeting with forced cheer, flashing a brief and unconvincing smile.  He was healthy enough to think straight and was no doubt dwelling on the things Zudarra had seen in his mind the night before.  In a few more feedings he would be a proper zombie, she hoped.

 

Yesterday seemed far away and difficult to envision in this clean and ordinary hallway, but reluctantly Saraven acknowledged that they needed to move on as quickly as they could.   _ Ask around about where the Hero of Kvatch was last heard from.  Go in the opposite direction around Cyrodiil.  I think he must've gone to Chorrol and northward, or we would've caught him up in Anvil.  Unless he's gone straight to the City to defend it.  No one's heard of any gate opening in the Capital. _

 

Yet.  It was just as likely he was attacking the outlying cities first, to weaken the nation as a whole before he moved on its capital city.  Skingrad had been the center of the West Weald, Cyrodiil's bread basket; with its farms and vineyards laid waste the people of Skingrad would have to hurry to replant enough food to get them through the winter, never mind supplying anyone else.  

 

_ It's the Nibenay Basin that matters now.  Leyawiin, then Cheydinhal.  _  He did not think Bravil was in much danger.  It was to wet to burn, and dremora that set foot in its narrow, steep streets would probably be stabbed, robbed naked and rolled into the canal before they knew what was happening.

 

Speaking to a couple of guards confirmed Saraven's speculation: Got-No-Home had closed a gate to Oblivion in Chorrol and there was no news of any attacks on the Imperial City.  Word was that the Legion had recalled troops from other postings in preparation for the inevitable attack and refused to send reinforcements to any of the other Cyrodiilic cities, let alone other provinces.   _ Callous, but prudent, _ Zudarra thought.

 

Zudarra was not happy with the prospect of traveling all the way to Leyawiin, so far from Anvil, but there seemed to be little choice.  She was Bal's puppet now, as much as it enraged her.  But with a strong ally like Saraven at her side, Zudarra found she was not especially fearful of the dremora.  Their excursions into the Deadlands had gone well so far.  

 

When they went to ride out, quietly ignored in the bustle of the courtyard except by the very polite guard who had fetched the horses, Saraven nudged Ves forward and his knee clicked against something metallic in his saddle bag.  He hooked his leg around the saddle horn to flick the flap open and peer inside.  There was a sack of what looked to be about 500 gold coins.  He blinked as he resumed a more normal riding position.  Presumably the same had been done for Zudarra.  The Count had anticipated them in several ways.  It was a little eerie.  Saraven was grateful for the rest, but he was just as glad to be out and on their way again.

 

They decided to cut through the Southwestern forest of the West Weald on an old, overgrown back road to make better time.  It would shave a day or two from what would otherwise have been at least a five day trip.

 

The sun had set hours ago.  The forest was not very thick, leaving the twinkling stars unobscured to guide their way.  Zudarra was leading her horse while Galmir rode.  Now and then the Bosmer would jolt awake, grabbing Shadow's neck and jerking up his chin from his chest when he felt his body begin to sag off the saddle.

 

Zudarra looked to Saraven, gray skin nearly silver in the moonlight.

 

“Are you going to rest on your own tonight, or will I collect you from the ground when you drop?” she asked amicably.  The broken remains of an old fort was growing closer, not far off the trail.

 

“Now is no time to start developing a sense of humor,” Saraven said dryly.  He was not at the point of collapse, but he was beginning to feel weary, and Galmir was obviously on his last legs.  “But I'm not averse to pulling off.  Shall we head for the fort?”  He clicked his tongue at Ves as he guided the horse that way.

 

Zudarra grunted assent and plowed into the underbrush in the direction of the fort, ignoring the stray bramble that scratched at her armor.  

 

The part of the fort that extended above ground was nothing more than a single tower.  A crooked pillar that once held an upper level still stood, but the ceiling and the stairs leading up had crumbled and were now nothing more than slabs of ancient stone jutting from the grass, leaving the place open to the elements.  The tower had been built into the side of a hill, and an arched doorway in the tower wall led to the subterranean levels.  Remains of a rotted door lay scattered by the entry, moss and weeds growing in the wind-blown soil a few feet past the entrance.  Ugly yellow lichen clung to the wall here, giving an impression of disease on otherwise gray-white stone.  Stairs led down into dark depths and nothing more could be seen.

 

There were mortal scents, but so old as to not trouble Zudarra.  Travelers like themselves had probably rested in the fort some weeks ago.  Other than that, the place smelled as natural and clean as the rest of the forest.

 

Zudarra tied Shadow to a tree outside and dragged Galmir down by his collar, who teetered on his feet for a second after being plopped down.  He squeaked a thanks to Zudarra and turned to retrieve his bedroll before following her into the fort. 

 

“We're, uh, not going down  _ there,  _ are we?” he asked, peering down the dark tunnel with his bed under an arm, having been fully awakened by the frightful prospect.

 

“Don't worry.  You'll be safe with us.  Basically nothing can surprise a betmer vampire in Nirn.  I'll light a torch for you and me.”  He grabbed a broken spar and a greasy scrap of canvas from the wreckage of the doors, wrapped one around the other, and lit it with an honest-to-gods flint and tinder.  To use a fireball to light a torch would be a waste of his magicka, and he had no mage-light.

 

The steps led downward some way, slick and mossy in the dark.  At the bottom they ended at a hallway that split to left and right.  The torchlight flickered on the remains of a barred portcullis-style door in one direction.  Saraven could see the handle meant to open it on the other side.  The other way seemed clear.

 

They came to what had once been a dining area, in a room that branched off not far down the hall, which continued down another flight of steps.  Rotted gray tapestries hugged the wall or lay in tatters on the floor.   A long table was still standing in the center of the room while chairs and cabinets had either rotted to splinters or been broken up for kindling, as evidenced by an old ash pile in one corner of the room.  A few blackened planks still sat in the center.  The stone floors were slick with moisture and dotted with the occasional droppings of wild animals who had wandered inside.  Zudarra wrinkled her nose at the mildew, but the air was far fresher than the caves of the Deadlands had been.  

 

Galmir had his bedroll clutched to his chest, eyes fearfully darting back and forth as he examined the place.  Shadows seemed to fly from corner to corner every time Saraven's arm moved the flickering torch, and Galmir jumped every time movement caught his eye.  Zudarra thought that she heard movement from further down and decided not to say anything about it.  Probably bats or raccoons; nothing worth hearing Galmir have a fit over.

 

“This is good,” she said, tossing her bag on the cleanest spot on the floor she could see, near the old fire.  “Hurry up and eat and go to bed, we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow.”  Galmir followed her orders reluctantly, rolling out his bed while continuing to glance around and look over his shoulder at every tiny noise made by the others.

 

Saraven found a sconce into which he could jam his makeshift torch.  It guttered and crackled as the flame consumed oil and dreck.  The shifting shadows did not bother him.  He had seen too many horrors exposed in broad daylight to fear the darkness even before the gates of Hell had opened into Tamriel.

 

He rolled out his bedroll near to Galmir's, then sat on it to eat dried food from his saddlebags and drink from his water skin.  Hopefully the Bosmer would feel safer in between him and Zudarra.  Saraven would sleep in his armor as well as the inevitable gorget and bracers.  He generally did when out in the world by himself.  

 

The last time he had slept outside alone had been a month ago, he realized.  It had been under a tree twenty miles outside of Kvatch.  It seemed a lifetime ago now, inconceivably far away in time.

 

At least Zudarra would not be tempted.  He hoped.  Removing the gorget would take minutes of lacing, which was a lot of premeditation for someone in any control of their thirst at all.  When she'd lost it inside the gate she'd just bitten it with her teeth.  He could still feel tiny indentations in the leather if he touched it just so.

 

_ But that was from exposure to daedric blood.  She's not like that all the time, or even most of the time. _  He acknowledged it in strict fairness, not merely telling himself what he wanted to hear, he thought firmly.  When they'd both eaten and Galmir was curled up in an unhappy bundle, Saraven went to extinguish the torch, then made his way back to his bedroll from memory, another skill acquired through long practice.  It did not take him long to fall asleep.

 

Zudarra watched them quietly until their shifting had ceased and their breathing became slow and regular.  It did not take long, after an exhausting day of travel.  She sat leaning against the wall, still in her armor, wondering if she should have brought her bedroll inside as well.  It would have been very hard to rest with both of them nearby, their hearts pounding in the silence of the ruin.  She had resolved to feed tomorrow, to stretch Galmir's limited strength as far as she could, and the hunger was just starting to become distracting again.

 

* * *

 

 

Two black-robed, hooded figures flew down the overgrown path on horseback, a shining ball of white light lagging behind several feet in the air above them.  A body-sized bundle wrapped in dark cloth lay stiffly across the lap of the first, an Altmer on a white appaloosa mare.  She sat tall and proudly upright, watching the passing scenery keenly.  Presently she slowed her mare to a walk, throwing up a black-gloved hand in signal to her companion.  The hoofbeats of his bay gelding slowed behind her.

 

“It's not far, now.  Wait, there it is,” The Altmer, Psyna, said, lowering her hood to reveal a smooth, youthful face, narrow and high cheek-boned as befitting a well-bred mer of her race.  Thick braids of golden blonde hair hung on either side of her pretty face, the rest of her long locks falling freely.  Her thin eyebrows arched severely, giving an impression of haughty annoyance most of the time. 

 

Psyna pointed to the ruined tower.  

 

Jerian nodded.  He was a withered Breton, sporting dark bags that pooled under deep set eyes and hollow cheekbones, all dominated by a hawkish nose that seemed far too strong a feature compared to the rest of him.  Scraggly strands of white hair clung to the sides of his scalp, the wind from the ride throwing his comb-over into disarray.  He sat hunched, narrow shoulders stooped forward, but perked at his companion's words and turned his horse off the road.  A questioning wicker from further up stopped them both in their tracks.

 

“Someone is here,” Psyna hissed.  She dismounted quickly, throwing her reigns over the limb of a tree, and eased forward through the foliage to get a better look.  After deciding the outside was abandoned, she returned to Jerian and pulled the large burden from her saddle to lean it against the tree.

 

“Two people left their horses tied up outside.  They must be spending the night in the fort,” she whispered.  Her serious aspect melted into glee.  “Our luck has never been better.”

 

“Indeed,” Jerian returned, sliding laboriously from the back of his gelding.  He moved stiffly as he followed the Altmer back to the fort.  He wore no gloves, and every knuckle of the man's thin hands were ringed with glittering gems.

 

They moved slowly, soft-soled shoes whispering quietly across stone.  But Zudarra heard the ruffling of cloth as it drew near, just outside the door.  She turned her head toward the entry in time to see a gloved hand followed by a golden face thrust into the room, and then a blinding ball of sickly green light was barreling toward her face before she could stand.  Magicka tingled like prickers against skin as it hit her face, and Zudarra found herself toppling sideways, unable to catch herself, limbs still locked in their position.  Her armor crashed jarringly against the stone. 

 

Saraven's eyes snapped open at the world-filling rattle of steel on stone as a green glow pierced his eyelids from outside.   _ Zudarra?  _  His hand seized on the hilt of his sword where it lay next to the bedroll as he rolled automatically to one side, away from Galmir, shedding the blanket as he went.  

 

"Galmir, wake up.  Get up against the wall," he ground out.

 

It was still dark inside the room, but he could see the form of Zudarra lumped up on the floor, silhouetted against the doorway.  The daedric sword sang as he drew it from the scabbard, poised on one knee, ready to dive in either direction.  Anything that could drop the vampire in one hit was not about to be asked quarter.

 

Psyna stepped fully forward into the room now, lobbing another ball of green magicka toward the only other armed individual.  Jerian waited patiently behind her, impassively watching with his hands tucked inside his loose sleeves, the scene before him veiled in shades of blue.  A Bosmer was scrabbling out of his bed and shrieking bloody murder before he even had a chance to get his bearings, frantically grabbing his hair and twisting around.  It was too dark for him to see, except when Psyna released the blast, and he screamed again at the sudden sight of the figures in the doorway.

 

Saraven threw himself forward in a maneuver he had used often of late, tucking and rolling over one shoulder with his sword held out to the side.  The ball of power – paralysis, he suspected, a strength drain would be red – shot over his head and impacted on the floor behind him in the moment before he came to his feet.  He could see a figure in a robe, the dim shape of pointed ears – mer, or a vampire who had once been mer.  Either way, he thrust his free hand forward and let the lightning go without breaking stride.

 

Psyna seized as she was hit, convulsing noiselessly on the spot as lightning burned through her body and then through the soles of her feet.  Galmir took off in a blind panic, old wood splintering as he crashed over an overturned chair and smacked his face against the hard stone floor.

 

Jerian's brow arched, and suddenly he seemed more interested than tired.  He stepped back as his companion convulsed, snapping his fingers to activate one of the rings on his right hand.  Purple light flashed out from the ring across his body, a skin of protective magicka flowing across his own.  The color faded, leaving behind only a faint glimmer on the parts of his pale skin that his robe did not conceal.

 

Psyna crumpled to the ground in a smoking, twitching heap, leaving Jerian alone and unguarded.  He raised both palms, one to the Altmer, and one to the ground in front of him.  As blue light shot from one palm to his fallen companion, white light struck the stone in front of him.  Light rebounded from the ground, shooting up and spiraling around a forming humanoid shape of pure white light.  The light faded then, leaving behind a skeletal warrior, silver claymore already drawn in its bony hands.  Its jawbone clacked open, empty sockets quickly scanning the room and falling on Saraven.

 

Zudarra seethed silently, unable to see Saraven from her vantage point, but she could see the flashes of light and heard his lightning hit a target.  Her fingers twitched uselessly, but they twitched harder with every passing second as she slowly regained control.

 

_ Necromancy.  _  Even now, when Dagon's minions walked in Nirn to kill and burn and destroy, there were men and mer willing to do as bad or worse.  Saraven felt annoyance more than anything else as he followed on forward, fading aside from a claymore swing at his neck.  The skeleton rattled and hissed at him as he spun away, to one side of the room where the second mage could not aim at him without coming all the way inside.  He'd no idea how long Zudarra would remain paralyzed, but he'd better not give the man time to concentrate fully on her, either.  Now he attempted to hook the skeleton's pelvis with the teeth of his blade, to knock it apart.  His stroke connected, but his sideways yank just forced it to sidestep to keep its balance; the bonds that held it together were surprisingly tough.

 

He could not throw a fireball at the doorway without hitting Zudarra, and he didn't know if she was already injured or not.  Presumably the old man had just shielded himself against lightning.  Well, there was one way to verify that.  Saraven dodged another heavy swing and threw the lightning again as he whirled past the doorway.

 

Electricity crackled across Jerian's shielded skin and he winced at the slight jolt that managed to penetrate his barrier.  Smoke rose from his robes as it bore the brunt of the attack, and he patted out the little flames with one hand when it was done, lobbing a white ball of freezing magicka back at the Dunmer with his other.

 

Psyna was climbing to her feet now and backing against the wall to the other side of the doorway, glaring watchfully at Zudarra, knowing her time was almost out.  Her robe bore burn marks across her chest where the lightning had hit, displaying little slivers of golden skin beneath, but the stench of burned flesh had receded as she healed.  Any other companion Jerian might have let die – the corpse would have its uses – but Psyna was too valuable an apprentice to waste her mind.

 

Zudarra's stiff limbs finally clacked to the floor as the spell ended and she was on her feet in a blur, daedric blade ripping free of its sheath.  The Altmer tossed a fireball, which whizzed past Jerian in the doorway.  Zudarra barely managed to dodge aside in time, fire exploding on the wall behind her.  She growled low in her throat, glaring hatred at the mer, knowing she would die under Zudarra's fangs if it was the last thing she ever did.

 

Saraven slowed to see if his attack had any effect, gritting his teeth as he realized how potent the old man's shield really was, and then he belatedly twisted away from the ball of glowing white.  It exploded against his left shoulder and side, needles of ice driving his mail into his flesh even as they froze the metal to his body.  He felt the cold burn him where it touched, searing the ends of nerves, and then the pain redoubled as the weight of the mail tore it away from him again, taking skin with it.  He bore it as he forced himself to move away from the doorway to the side again, breath hissing between his teeth.  He heard the fireball and heard Zudarra move, though she was too fast to see – but she was up, that was what mattered.  

 

He glanced up just in time to see the claymore descending toward his head.  Saraven jerked away, made clumsy by the frigid agony in his left side.  The blade crashed down into the floor beside him.  He bashed at the undead's nearer arm-bones with the hilt of his blade, hoping to shatter its grip.

 

The heavy claymore clattered to the ground and the skeleton turned to swipe at Saraven's face with its hand.   Bony nails raked across his cheek as the blow spun him around.  Saraven rolled with the movement, taking the pain but keeping his balance.  His arm came around in a hard back-swing aimed at the skeleton's spine.  It hit with a jarring impact, and the thing fell apart, bones clattering on the floor before they vanished into nothing.  

 

Zudarra faded from view then.  Fear finally passed over the Altmer's face and she quickly raised a shield of magicka, encasing her form with a sphere of translucent purple light.  She threw fire at the clanking that rapidly approached, always missing the invisible Khajiit by a hair as she zig-zagged behind Saraven and around to the other side of the doorway.  The tell-tale sounds stopped suddenly, leaving both mages looking around – Psyna with fear, Jerian with slight interest.

 

Flames crackled from the Altmer's palms.  She held them at the ready, back nearly against the wall.

 

“Come on, try it,” she hissed, sneering, eyes flicking rapidly across the room for any disturbance in the dust or debris.  Too late to act she sensed daedric steel penetrating her bubble, slowed by the shield but still powered by all the force a vampiric Cathay-raht could muster.  The air shimmered with magicka and Zudarra appeared as her blade thrust through the Altmer's stomach.  Psyna screamed, releasing twin blasts of fire but she was made stupid from pain and her aim was unguided.  Heat roared on either side of Zudarra and Jerian stepped back into the hall to avoid a blast of fire that still managed to singe the tip of his nose.  

 

Zudarra twisted the blade in the Altmer's guts, eliciting a sharp yelp and then nothing as the Altmer sagged forward, dead.  A red waterfall gushed to the floor as Zudarra turned her by the hilt to position the dead mage as a living shield between herself and the human, who was stepping back into the room.  His looked wearily at the corpse of his companion and sighed.

 

Saraven turned to look around as the skeleton fell.  The Altmer was dead, spitted on Zudarra's sword.  The Breton was still standing.  Saraven flexed his frozen left arm, grimacing, and moved forward.

 

Zudarra heard the clack of bones on stone and knew Saraven had prevailed.  She grinned at the Breton and launched forward, greatsword still held parallel with the ground and the Altmer dangling from it, but Jerian's hands were already raised as she began to move.  An inferno of flame poured from his palms, engulfing both Zudarra and her meat shield.  The body offered slight protection to her head, but fire roared at every side.  The Khajiit's agonized scream was ear-shattering.  She scrabbled backward away from the flame, stumbling on her burned paws and crashing down against the ground.  The blackened husk impaled on her greatsword landed on top of her.  

 

Saraven checked in his stride as Zudarra screamed.  His heart jerked unexpectedly in his chest at the sound, and he fought memory as she fell – 

 

_ one of the old ones burning, running screaming across a room - _

 

_ -One of the young ones burning, flailing madly about the cave -  _

 

No.  Zudarra was in horrible pain, but she was alive.  Most of her face was blackened and hairless.  Only a small circle encompassing her eyes and nose remained singed instead of thoroughly burned.  She moaned on the ground, still smoking.  Through the haze of pain she managed a twitch of her fingers, blue light spilling from her hand as the burns healed with torturous slowness.  Saraven raised his face to the Breton's, his eyes flat and empty.  

 

“You just cost me my apprentice  _ and _ her body,” the Breton huffed, frowning in annoyance.  He looked from the fallen vampire to the Dunmer and held up a hand, icy white light swirling in his half-open palm.  “I'd stop there if I were you, friend.”

 

“Sorry, Zudarra,” Saraven said quietly.  Then he hurled himself forward across her body in a diving roll, preparing an upward stab through the mage's ribs as he came up.  Zudarra screamed again when Saraven’s weight pressed against her burns. 

 

Jerian threw his attack at the first sign of movement but the frigid ball blew past just above Saraven's back as he rolled.  His eyelids shot open wide, eyeballs round and white in their deep sockets when the blade pierced his flesh.  Daedric steel scraped sickeningly against bone.  He swiped madly in the direction of the Dunmer's face, freezing magicka spraying from his hand.

 

Saraven kept his grip on the sword, twisting it roughly to open the wound further.  He hunched up one shoulder to protect his face, but that worked only partially.  Freezing power sprayed his head and left arm again, doing further damage on top of what had already been done.  An agonized hiss escaped between his teeth.  He shoved the Breton away with his good shoulder, yanking the sword out to produce a spray of arterial red.  He twitched the muscles of his frozen left hand.  Blue spiraled up around him as he staggered upright, partially healing the terrible freezing burns.  New flesh crawled up under his mail to replace what had been torn away, steam rising from the links of his mithral shirt.

 

Jerian screeched as he was flung back and the teeth of the blade ripped through his innards, skull smacking against the stone of the hallway when he landed.  White spots filled his vision.  His fingers twitched and a ring on his hand flashed blue.  He felt a shifting inside his wound as flesh knitted with flesh and the pain receded.

 

Saraven raised a boot and stamped down on the Breton's nearer arm, feeling bone crack underfoot.  He bent to stab the sword at the old man's throat again and again, trying to hack his head off before he could again heal himself.  His left side and the scratches on his face still hurt, but it was peripheral, able to be ignored until the thing that needed doing was done.

 

Jerian's screams turned to wet gurgles as his throat was slashed and blood bubbled out.  He was dead soon after, staring glassy-eyed and slack jawed past the Dunmer as blood pooled around his head, drenching the thin strands of hair that lay across the floor.

 

Zudarra healed herself again and again, undead flesh mending reluctantly.  Her blackened skin had faded to an unhealthy red, still dry and furless, when her magicka ran out.  The stinking corpse on top of her and the remaining stench of her own burned fur caught in her nostrils.  She weakly hoisted herself up on her elbows.

 

“Galmir,” she croaked.

 

Galmir looked up from where he cowered beneath the old table at the sound of his name.  In the darkness he could see the little blue sparks of Zudarra’s last heal petering out, and his heart leapt to his throat at the sight of Zudarra on the ground.  He had heard her scream before and saw the orange light beyond his closed lids, but his head had been buried between his knees and the Bosmer didn't know exactly what had happened.

 

Dread and fear clenched icy fingers around his heart, a fear greater than that which had sent him running at the sight of the strangers.  He scrabbled out from under the table, half-crawling and half-running to Zudarra's side.  She needed him!  The death of the Khajiit was a horror he could not fathom.  He didn't know why, but why scarcely mattered.  He dropped to his knees beside her as she shoved the charred corpse and her greatsword away from herself.

 

“I'm here!” he cried shrilly, laying a hand on her arm.  He was vaguely aware of Saraven and the Breton less than three feet away, but his eyes did not leave the injured vampire.

 

Zudarra grabbed Galmir's shoulder and hauled herself up to a proper sitting position before clamping her fangs on his neck, crushing him to her armored chest in her arms.  He sighed and melted against her as she drank feverishly, the cracked red flesh of her face turning healthy pink and soft fur sprouting from the new skin.

 

Galmir thought only of her – how perfect it felt to be of use to Zudarra, how much he loved her touch and the sensation of his blood being sucked from the punctures.  He felt so warm and safe, wrapped in a cottony cocoon of joy.  But Zudarra did not think of him at all, only the pleasure of her drink and the newfound power that coursed through her body after her wounds healed.

 

Galmir's hands had been clutching at Zudarra's arms.  Now their grasp faltered and his hands dropped at either side of himself, fingers twitching weakly.

 

Saraven knelt to wipe his sword on the dead man's robe, then quickly sheathed it.  He turned to look for Zudarra.  Her injuries had been serious.  He might have to split the difference and wait on his own healing until he'd finished his night's rest.  But no, she was all right, arms enfolding the Bosmer as she drank.  Galmir looked pale and limp, arms dangling.

 

“Stop,” Saraven said.  He sheathed the blade quickly and got up to move toward them.  “Zudarra, stop, you'll kill him.”  He bent to grab her arm.  It was happening again, and there was nothing to protect her thrall from her.  He thought he knew her well enough now to be aware that she would regret it if she took the sad little mer's life.

 

A new weight on her arm forced Zudarra's mind to take stock of her surroundings.  Saraven stood beside her.  Galmir sagged in her arms.

 

_ Yes,  _ she realized, thoughts muddy and reluctant.  _  I have to stop. _  She jerked away, almost letting the limp Bosmer flop to the floor, but she caught him around the shoulders.  Slowly she stood, scooping him up in her arms.  His head rolled against her chest, face unnaturally pale, but his eyes fluttered open and Galmir smiled weakly.  She now had just enough magicka from her feeding to heal the puncture wounds that slowly bled onto his collar.

 

She glared down at Saraven, irritated that he had been right about something more than that her feeding was interrupted.  Bitter shame heated her face, although he could not see.  He must not see.

 

“He's smaller than what I'm used to,” she snipped, unapologetic, carrying Galmir to his bed.  

 

The Dunmer looked back steadily as he raised a hand to heal himself, the lines around his eyes deepening.  Pain smoothed out and vanished from his frozen left side, the marks on his face blending into his dragon-wing tattoos and vanishing.  He did not argue with her.  What she said was not even a lie, and that was an improvement for these defensive outbursts.  

 

Zudarra did not throw him down, but she rolled Galmir out of her arms like he was a piece of equipment and not a person, then kneeled to rifle in her bag for water.  He'd landed on his side and flopped onto his back, so she raised his head with a palm and held an uncorked bottle to his lips along with a command to drink.  Galmir obeyed, happily closing his eyes.  

 

“Throw the bodies down the stairs in the hall,” she commanded, not looking back at the Dunmer.  “I'll go out and see if there's any more of them in a minute.”  The room stunk of charred flesh and death.

 

“Sure.”  He watched a moment longer to see that Galmir was really all right, and then he turned to grab the charred hunk of flesh that had been the Altmer and drag her to the stairs to tumble her down.  The body shed flakes of scorched carbon all the way down into the darkness,  _ whomp whomp thump _ .

 

Then he went to search the body of the Breton, making sure to collect his rings.  He'd used one of them to heal himself, that seemed like something that might come useful later.  Saraven set it aside from the others, sliding it over his thumb.  _  I wonder if it will fit Galmir.  Could be a nice backup when we come out of a gate.  _  It would be a way to keep power in reserve and not have to worry so much about choosing which of them could survive not being healed right away.

 

He threw that body down after the other one.  The robes made an unnerving  _ flapflapflap _ as the corpse bumped and rolled its way down after the first.

 

Zudarra inspected the outside with Saraven when Galmir had been seen to, finding nothing more than two horses and what was obviously a body bundled up in cloth, some poor soul that would soon have been the slave of the necromancers.  It had been human and seemed fresh, as corpses go; it smelled of chemicals more than decay to Zudarra's nose.  She pulled down their bags from the saddles to look through, leaving Saraven to do with the body what he wished.

 

Saraven hauled the body off over his shoulder – it was heavy and cold - and rolled it down the stairs after its presumed murderers.  Then he spent the last of his power sending a fireball down after all of them.  The broken stairwell lit with an incredible WHOMP as the preservatives in the corpse caught fire.  

 

“Arkay deliver you to your proper destinations,” he said to them.  It seemed necessary somehow.  He left the fire burning merrily as he went back out to the horses.

 

“The man had some rings,” he said.  “This one confers fire resistance.  This one poison.”  He held them out pinched between finger and thumb.  “I'd rather keep the ice and lightning shields.  There's a healing ring too, but I think we ought to give it to Galmir.  We'll have a way to get healed when we come out of a gate running on empty.”

 

“Good idea,” Zudarra said, looking up from her inspection of the saddle bags to take the rings with her claws and slipping each onto different fingers.  The fire resistance ring was a ruby gem that looked almost black under the night sky.  She wasn’t one for jewelry – these seemed big and gaudy to her – but it would be a blessing for a vampire in the Deadlands.

 

Zudarra reported her findings.  They'd been carrying plenty of dried foods, alchemical equipment, a plethora of soul gems in various sizes.  Zudarra didn't really know what most of the equipment was, but knew it must be valuable.  There were lots of empty vials, a few filled with liquid.  They were marked with blue x's, magicka restoratives.  Zudarra tucked it all back where she found it.  

 

The appaloosa whickered questioningly, snuffling at the Khajiit pawing through the bags.  She had probably been exposed to enough undead that the scent of vampire did not bother her.  Galmir had his own mount now, it seemed.


	13. Chapter 13

It was a long ride to Leyawiin, but it was largely uneventful crossing the West Weald.  For a long stretch you could almost believe everything was fine, and the only real dangers were the necromancers and the bears.  Rolling hills stretched out in front of them covered in long grass and varicolored flax blossoms, red and yellow and blue.  The second night they slept in a small cave that Saraven had used before.  Vampires had lived there, but he had cleared them out so many years ago that not the slightest smell of blood or ashes remained.

 

They eventually turned North toward the river.  The city of Leyawiin was built on the mouth of the Niben at the opening of Topal Bay.  The city actually straddled the estuary, wallowing in the swampy water.  It was full of little ponds, canals, and waterways, ruled as much by cattails and dragonflies as by the Count and the Guard.  Sited on the trans-Niben, a little Imperial strip of land between Elsweyr and Black Marsh, it was home to sizable populations of both Argonians and Khajiit, though the one might prefer the damper real estate and the other the drier.  The walls were covered with moss, looking black halfway from ground to sky when seen from a distance.

 

The sky began to go red as they drew nearer.  They rode up from the South, and the city's main gate was on the West, but as they moved that way they could see the distant spires of the open gate to the Deadlands.  Black billows of smoke rose from the Western half of the city.  Saraven knew from memory that much of East Leyawiin was underwater, with homes and businesses clustered along the shores of the lakelets that divided the from the internal walls of Castle Leyawiin.

 

“Time to go to work,” Saraven said quietly, reigning up Ves in a copse of trees.  There weren't a lot of hills overlooking Leyawiin, but at least the dremora had no reason to hunt far from the walls if they were still trying to complete their conquest of the city.

 

Zudarra tied the other horses near Ves.  Galmir could barely stand immediately following Zudarra’s desperate draining after the necromancer attack, although he was happy and compliant and rarely spoke.  By now he was strong enough to disembark from the much smaller appaloosa on his own, so Zudarra left him to it with her usual instructions.  With a powerful ward against her single greatest weakness glittering red and gold on her finger, Zudarra was in high spirits as the two warriors set off on foot for the city.  She did not fear the dremora.  The prospect of a proper meal stirred her passions, and she could barely keep the cruel, expectant grin from her face. 

 

The gate appeared unguarded.  Some war tents had been erected nearby, but were unpopulated.  The broken bodies of guards lay strewn around the Leyawiin gate, which had burned through, but the carnage was much less than that seen in Skingrad.

 

“Seems like Leyawiin might have offered decent resistance,” Zudarra remarked as they approached.  She kept her voice low, just in case.

 

“The city's half-filled with water,” he said.  “I wouldn't go wading in heavy armor.  Not with a lot of very angry Argonians about.”  He looked up.  “You can still see smoke.  They must be fighting house to house.”  Maybe there weren't even prisoners in the gate yet.  Saraven felt a surge of unaccustomed hope.  “Come on.  Let's get through the gate and get this done.”

 

He turned toward the crimson membrane.  It hummed loudly in the stillness, deep and just slightly off, a teeth-setting whine behind the basso vibration.  By now he knew exactly what to expect as he drew his sword and stepped into the portal: the sensation of incredible speed and the sudden stop as he burst through into the searing heat of the Deadlands.

 

The sudden forest of clubs and maces was not something he had been expecting.  One hit him in the head in the instant it took him to register that he was completely surrounded.  He spun, trying to bring his sword to bear, but he'd taken a blow to the head; the world tilted and spun as the butts of other weapons slammed into his chest, his abdomen, his legs.

 

“Zudarra, run - !”

 

Another hilt hit him in the temple, and that was all for some time.

 

Zudarra was a step behind him through the fiery portal, greatsword resting against her shoulder.  When the queasy sensation of movement had ended she balked at the army of sneering black faces.  She tried to backpedal through the gate but they were on her, shoving against her from all sides as blows rained against her head and her sword, knocking it from her hands.  She snarled and screamed, clawing through the crowd as it engulfed her and beat her into submission and then blackness.

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra slowly came to, a painful throbbing in her skull permeating her senses before anything else.  Then, the putrid stench of death and decay, followed by wetness.  Her fur was matted with her own blood, her head having played pincushion to the barbs of their cudgels.  She moaned, eyes fluttering open to painful light and twitched a finger.  Healing light spiraled out from her hand and the mind-numbing pain finally ebbed, and Zudarra pushed herself up on her elbows.  She was lying down on warm, sticky stone.  Sticky from things aside from her own blood, she realized with disgust, sitting up.

 

She was in her woolen under-armor padding.  Zudarra's eyes snapped down to her hand; the bastards had taken her rings as well.  She growled, hands clenching into fists.

 

They were in a cage, but not one like those they had seen so far.  It was more of a large dungeon cell, solid black stone on three sides with the fourth wall a grated door of alien black metal, the same that the tall cages had been made from.  Across from their cell was another, where a red Argonian was lying with his back turned to them.  His breaths were a ragged, rattling hiss and deep lacerations crisscrossed his body.  His clothes were bloody rags that hung loosely from him, baring most of his back.  She could hear more moaning and crying from further down the row of cells.  

 

The worst was in the cell with them.  The week-old corpse of a Khajiit lay heaped in the corner, crawling with spiny maggots.  He had been an orange tiger Suthay, now bloated and terribly mangled with deep gashes exposing bone and limbs twisted in unnatural angles.  Liquid feces and other fluids had leaked from the body and ran through the cracks in the floor.  At one time his clothes had been fine, a handsome silk vest over his high-collared tunic, but now they were ripped and caked with dried blood.  A leather shoulder bag was twisted around his body.

 

Yellow liquid leaked from his shriveled eyes.  One of them jiggled with the movement of a maggot inside.  Zudarra had to look away.  She did not know if a vampire could vomit, but didn't want to find out.

 

Now that her eyes had adjusted, the room was actually quite dim.  A fire Zudarra could not see from her vantage point burned somewhere down the hall that ran between the cells.

 

Saraven lay slumped against a wall near the bars, head sagging onto one shoulder.  He was also clad in just his armor padding, the shirt torn at the neck and halfway down the front where a mace had caught and hooked the material.  It had gouged his flesh as well, leaving behind a long cut that had bled into the fabric.  His visible face and hands were almost black with bruises.  His left eye was swollen and the eyebrow was matted with blood from a cut on his forehead.  

 

Just pain was not enough to drag him back to awareness.  Pain seemed eternal, without beginning or end.  It was the tightness in his throat and chest, making it hard to breathe, that finally hauled him back toward wanting to move; wanting to move required him to acknowledge what he was leaning on; feeling dragged him toward sound.  He could hear himself breathing, air rasping in and out of his throat.  Eventually he tried to open his eyes.  The right one opened on a blur of color, black and cream and red.  The left one would not open.

 

“Ngh.”  Saraven straightened his neck slowly, stifling a groan.  Squinting and blinking finally cleared the blood and sweat from his right eye, and he was aware that he was looking at a dead Khajiit.  His heart jerked painfully against his ribs for a second, until he recognized that the corpse was smaller, and orange, and had been dead a long time.  His eye moved to and fro as he sought Zudarra.  She had to be here.  Nothing else would ever make sense.

 

“Heal yourself,” Zudarra hissed under her breath, not hoping to draw their jailer until he had done so.  She pushed herself to her feet and came over to the bars near him, grasping the warm metal in her hands and peering down the hall as far as she was able.  She could see nothing but more cells in either direction, filled with people in much worse condition than themselves.  They had probably been lying for a long time with their wounds left to fester.

 

She flopped herself down against the wall opposite Saraven, also by the bars, careful not to touch the floor with her hands.  From here she could keep watch, and it was as far away from the rotting corpse as she could possibly get.  It wasn't far enough.

 

_ There you are.  _  For the first time in almost twenty years Saraven grinned out of something other than feral rage.  It was a fleeting expression, there and gone, but it was real.  He opened and closed his left hand as he drew on the power.  The soft blue light seemed inappropriately bright in the darkness, glinting on the dreck that covered the floor.  It was a relief to feel the swelling in his left eye smooth away more than anything else, and he squinted and blinked as his vision adjusted to the use of both eyes.

 

She was there across from him, stripped down to her padding.  So was he, he realized as he looked down at himself and up again.  Of course.  They'd left them both in their armor the first time, and look how that had gone.

 

The Cathay-raht was dirty and her fur was matted with blood, but he could see pink flesh in a couple of spots; she'd already healed herself.  Saraven got slowly to his feet, trying to keep as quiet as possible, and leaned over to rest his head against the bars, peering out into the hallway.  It was a grim and dreadful scene, not so very unlike what they had run into inside the gate at Skingrad except for the different structure of the building.

 

They hadn't been stupid enough to leave a hanging key near the cage bars.  He'd had to check.

 

He didn't see an obvious guard, either.  There must be a post out of sight in one direction or other.  His eyes traveled back to the corpse in the corner.

 

_ Or there isn't, because they only come down here to throw people in the cells and then leave.  _  Well, that left a best-case scenario of three days for him, a mad eternity of agonizing thirst for Zudarra.

 

“They ambushed us,” he rasped quietly.  “I wonder if they got him, too.”  Maybe the Argonian had been more wary.  He had to hope.

 

“We won't be here long,” Zudarra growled irritably, not so much at Saraven but more at the entire situation they'd been thrown into.  “If someone comes, perhaps you should lie down and play injured so their guard is down.  I'll drain them and we'll be home free.  Our equipment has to be in here somewhere.”  She spoke with authority to mask her fear, but a large part of Zudarra believed her own words.  They'd come too far, survived too many impossible situations for her life to end in this stinking dungeon.

 

The Argonian across from them seemed to finally register their presence; he shifted slowly, turning over onto his other side to face them.  His face was as heavily decorated with cuts as the rest of him, and Zudarra could see that the softer scales of his belly were bruised purple and black in the places where his clothes were torn.  His face was streaked with twin stripes of green from his eyes to his nose.  His orange eyes opened to slits to watch them.  A crown of bony spikes ringed his skull, and some of the spikes that lined his jaw had been chipped.  He sucked in a wheezy breath before speaking.

 

“You seem.... sure of... yourself,” he hissed weakly, barely audible.

 

“I am,” Zudarra said.  “We've closed three gates by ourselves so far.  Do you have any useful skills?”  The Argonian's chest heaved in a short, rasping cough that she thought might be a chuckle.

 

“As if it... matters,” he responded.

 

Saraven turned fully to face him, leaning one arm on the bars.  The metal was warm enough that he felt it through his sleeve.

 

“No reason to bandy harsh words.  We're all in the same place,” he said.  “I'm Saraven Gol.  This is Zudarra the Bloody.”

 

He reached a hand out through the bars toward the opposite cage, flaring the fingers.  A burst of blue light traveled toward the Argonian, opening out into a pair of helices that passed through the bars without slowing.

 

The gashes on the Argonian's face and body pulled shut, leaving behind distortions in his coloration where it scarred.  The wounds had been too old to heal cleanly.  He winced momentarily as ribs shifted in his chest and the puncture in his lung closed, and finally pushed himself up to sit cross-legged.

 

“Thank you, friend,” he said after a deep breath.  His voice had become louder, but still raspy and dry.  “The name is Cliff-Diver.  No harshness was intended.  To answer the big one’s question, yes, I was fighting when I was taken.  Imperial Legion, but I wasn't on duty when they came, and it's a good thing, too.  I'd be just as dead as the rest of them who attacked head on.  We'd been holding the Eastern half of the city with guerrilla tactics – still are, I'd presume, as I haven't seen any other Argonians hauled down here since I was captured...  Hours blend together here, I don't know how long ago.  Feels like weeks, but must have been yesterday.  You say you closed three gates?”

 

Zudarra nodded.

 

“Kvatch, Anvil, Skingrad.  But they were waiting for us this time,” She looked down at her clenched fists, scowling.  “Even if we get out of here alive, we might never be able to get inside a gate like that again.”

 

“One thing at a time,” Saraven said.  “When we approached the city smoke was still rising only from the Western half, Cliff-Diver.  Don't think they've taken the East yet.  Meanwhile, here we are.  No point in worrying about the next gate 'til we're out of this one.”

 

Conversation between the cells petered out soon.  Cliff-Diver was curious to know about their past victories, but he was obviously dehydrated and tired, and his voice seemed to be giving out.  He finally retreated to lean against a wall of his cell, closing his eyes.

 

“Don't know if I'll make it till they come back,” he croaked.  “But hope you softskins find your way.”

 

“Perhaps we'll meet again,” Saraven said quietly.

 

Hours passed.  It was impossible to say how long; even if there had been windows, there were no celestial bodies to mark the time in this place.  Zudarra grew restless, at times flying to her feet and pacing, and at others yanking on the bars.  Whatever material they were made from, she could not budge them.  They didn't even rattle.  Sometimes she shouted insults and challenges to the dremora guard who  _ must _ have been within earshot, but no one ever came.  

 

She never grew accustom to the heat and the stench, to the sight of the corpse in the corner.  With nothing else to occupy her mind, she wondered who that man had been.  What did his last hour on Nirn entail?  Who did he think of when he died?  Did he have a mother who would miss him?

 

Zudarra growled through clenched teeth and slammed her arm against the bars as if to shatter her own morbid thoughts, but she succeeded only in bruising herself.  She'd been pacing again, and finally came to a halt.  Her tail continued to lash behind her as her irritation grew.  The Argonian had complained about her outbursts a few times and told her to save her strength, but now he was silent, without the energy to care.

 

Saraven walked quietly back and forth along the wall of the cell when he felt he had to move.  Otherwise he sat near the bars to conserve his energy, knees up so he could rest his arms on them.  He was sorry to hear Cliff-Diver's voice give out.  He hated to have used the last of his magicka for nothing; but he could not imagine a world where he would have left the Argonian dying slowly of his wounds.  Was dehydration a more or less painful way to go than a punctured lung?

 

_ I've had a punctured lung.  It hurt like hell.  I guess I'm going to find out the other thing. _

 

Sometimes he dozed, head resting on his folded arms and arms atop his knees.  It was not entirely comfortable, it wasn't real rest, but it was impossible to imagine sleeping in the filth on the floor.  He jerked awake as he heard the echoing impact of flesh with bars, but it was only Zudarra expressing her frustration.

 

“Save your strength,” he said wearily.  “If they come back you'll need it.”

 

“I don't tire as you do,” she said curtly, and instantly regretted the unnecessary rudeness.  She may not tire as easily, but she would.  Zudarra's scowl softened and she slid to the ground against the wall opposite Saraven, arm threaded through and grasping the bars from the outside.  She curled her twitching tail over her thigh to avoid the floor.  The moisture that soaked through the seat of her pants was revolting.

 

So far, Zudarra hadn't given any real thought to what would happen if no one came for them.  No one took prisoners and then did  _ nothing _ with them.  But she looked at Saraven now, sitting there defenseless and weary and wondered how long she could control herself if she weren't able to feed.  She pitied the thirst the Dunmer must feel already.  He was already practically defenseless against her, and he would grow weaker by the hour.

 

She stared quietly at the floor, then the Argonian.  Voices moaned or sobbed softly in the distance, but no one spoke.  Finally she looked back to her cell mate, remembering a time when she hated him.  Gods, it had only been a week since they met, but it felt like a lifetime.  Zudarra couldn't call Saraven a friend, but she respected him as a worthy ally.  He didn't deserve to die here any more than that Khajiit did.  

 

Zudarra did not want to be the one to kill him.

 

“If we ever survive, and Mehrunes Dagon is defeated, and life goes on as normal... What will you do?” she asked suddenly, quietly.

 

He shrugged and laid his head on his arms again.  He was parched, his tongue painfully fat and dry in his mouth.  Speaking was an effort, and his voice was rougher than usual, hard to master clear words.  Had it been a day and a half?  It was impossible to suppose.  How long had they been unconscious?

 

“If that should happen, rebuilding will take years.  The kind of vampires I've given my life to fighting thrive in chaos and ruin, where people can easily go missing without notice.”  He paused to try and swallow.  “You are fundamentally honest, forthright, not an eater of children.  Someone will have to go after the ones that are not like you.”

 

He felt that things had come strangely full circle.  He had begun his acquaintance with Zudarra trapped together in a gate, waiting out the time until his own death, trying to accomplish something before then.  And here he was again.  But there was nothing to accomplish in here; he had not even really saved Cliff-Diver.  

 

_ But perhaps I can make it last long enough for her to escape. _

 

“That won't happen,” he said.  “I have maybe another thirty-six hours if I don't move much.  You could still last long enough to escape.  You should feed while I'm alive.  Make it last until they come to throw someone else in here, kill the guard, and get out.”

 

Zudarra stared at him dumbfounded, as if he'd struck her across the face.  She'd plucked Vandalion and Galmir out of their own ruined lives.  He knew that.  Zudarra told herself time and again that she  _ wasn't _ like those monsters.  For some reason, hearing Saraven put her in another class forced Zudarra to admit that she was barely any better.  She followed the law to hide herself from hunters like him, not because she cared about her victims.

 

She wished that she cared.  Zudarra was acutely aware of her deficiency, that she was callous and cruel while everyone else seemed to have an innate affinity for their fellow mer.  People like Saraven could throw away their own lives in the service of others.  After finally having earned his respect, Zudarra found that it left a sour taste in her mouth.

 

“I'll consider it,” Zudarra said slowly, although that was a lie.  She smiled bitterly.  “Would be a shame to weaken you now and have them come for us an hour later.”

 

He nodded.  He wasn't sure how he'd surprised her.  Perhaps after all this time she really had not understood that he did respect her as other than the monsters of his waking memories.  At least he'd gotten that out between them before the end.  That was worth something.  She was selfish, but so were many people.  It didn't take a vampire, and most people that were that way didn't fight it.  And he'd seen her fight it, fight her own nature again and again.  That was harder than just doing what came naturally to someone like Got-No-Home, or her mother, or presumably the priests in the temples.

 

* * *

 

 

Time passed.  He got up and walked less and less as the heat seemed to leech his strength.  Eventually he found himself propped in the corner between bars and wall because it was easier than trying to support his head on his arms.  It would be so easy to just lapse into a haze and not try to come out of it again, but...

 

“Zudarra?” he forced his eyes open to look around for the Cathay-raht again.

 

Zudarra had been dozing as best she could.  After her brain had run through a million regrets, a million unpleasant fantasies of their bleak future, there had been nothing left to do.  Cliff-Diver was slumped over now, and didn't respond when she'd called to him many hours ago.  He was breathing, but probably on his way out.

 

She lifted her head from the wall she'd been leaning it on and looked to Saraven, more pathetic than she'd ever seen him yet.  His lips were dry and cracked, eyes sunken and skin beginning to shrivel.  Pretty soon he would resemble the desiccated corpse of one of her earlier victims.

 

They had to have been in the cell for at least a day now, maybe longer.  Her thirst was rising.  Even with air clouded by rotting corpse and feces she could smell Saraven.  She would be able to hold off until he died, she knew; but meanwhile it was beginning to torture her.  Her thoughts had become a constant battle.  _  Should I feed on him or not?  What will Molag Bal do to me if I kill my strongest ally against Dagon? _

 

_ How will I live with myself if I kill this man who said he trusted me? _

 

“Still here,” she said tiredly.

 

“Soon, please,” he said.  He could not raise his voice above a rough whisper.  “Let me die doing something for someone.  Give me that gift.”

 

Something tightened inside Zudarra's cold chest.  Another horrible and new and utterly unwanted emotion was bleeding out now.   _ Sorrow. _  For someone other than herself.  It was different and deeper than anything she could have possibly felt for herself.

 

“Why do you have to be this way?” Zudarra snarled, voice cracking.  “Why are you so fucking selfless to the very last!” 

 

“Not,” he murmured.  “My life ended in 3E 403.  What happens to me... Doesn't matter...  Never has.”

 

Raged suffused her.  She yanked herself to her feet by the bars and screamed with her muzzle against them, banging and yanking and roaring unintelligibly to no reward.  When she exhausted herself, realizing what a fool she'd made of herself if anyone were conscious enough to watch, she knocked her head against the bars and closed her eyes against the stinging wetness.  She had never felt more powerless in her entire life.  

 

He listened to her futile noises of protest – that was his Zudarra, defiant to the last.  It warmed him even as he felt himself continue to grow weaker, letting his eyes shut again.  Here at the end, where there were no illusions, he acknowledged silently that he loved her.  It was not a romantic series of sensations.  He was without physical desire for her.  But he wished ardently for her to survive, to prosper, to go on spitting in Dagon's face with every drop of dremora blood she spilt or drank, to have that life of which she had spoken in a world free of the taint of daedric invasion.  He had never let himself have a friend after the end of all that he had cared for, but she had sort of crept up on him.  Not wanting or offering friendship, not really sure of what she felt herself, brave and insecure and incredibly self-centered and trying so hard not to be.

 

There was no way he could tell her.  Even if he had the strength, it would only make her feel worse.

 

Zudarra allowed herself only a few moments more to bask in her sorrow before her fists tightened around the bars. _  No!  I won't let them win!  _  Her eyes snapped open and she whirled, eyes darting desperately around the cell for something,  _ anything _ she had missed.  A weakness in the walls not previously seen, something to be fashioned into a weapon or tool – her eyes landed on the leather bag, its strap twisted around the decaying Khajiit.  She stepped forward, her eyes locked on his dead ones as if waiting for the creature to spring up and grab her.

 

She picked up the bag and tugged at the strap.  It had fallen from his shoulder so that the strap was around his midsection, a twisted arm holding it down.  Zudarra picked up the arm by the sleeve; the rigor had passed, but the movement caused the mushy skin to open up.  A clump of fur and skin shed from the limp hand, blobs of coagulated blood and muscle plopping to the ground after it along with a cluster of writhing maggots.  Something inside gave way, and yellow-brown liquid oozed around her feet.  Zudarra quickly worked the strap over his head, trying her best not to jostle the body any further, and retreated back to her corner with her prize.  

 

She tried not to touch the areas on the leather that were stained with gore as she searched.  Inside were more little bags filled with gold, and Zudarra nearly laughed at the absurdity of it.  But beneath the gold were potion vials, nine in all.  They were unmarked.  Zudarra uncorked one to smell it, and recoiled at the bitter scent.  __ Saraven might survive a few more days with these to drink, but he'd still be utterly useless if they ever got out of the cell.  No telling how sick they might make him, too.

 

_ If only he were like me, we might have a chance. _

 

_ If he were like me... _

 

She looked up at the Dunmer, leaning against the corner with his eyes closed again.

 

“You awake, Saraven?” she asked, a lump rising in her throat.  His pulse was very weak.

 

He wondered distantly what she’d been doing to cause so much squelching and clinking around the corpse.  With great effort he parsed meaning out of her words.

 

“Only just,” he managed, his voice barely audible.

 

There was a long pause while Zudarra thought.  To respond would be to acknowledge the ever forward march of time, and to be forced into action or inaction.  She desperately needed for that not to happen.  She did not want to make this choice.

 

_ My life ended in 3E 403. _  That must be the date his family had been killed.  That was about eight years before Zudarra was even born; a lifetime ago, and still the horror of whatever Saraven had faced that day was burned into his soul, refusing to release him from its hold.  She didn't blame him for his hatred of her kind.  In that moment, Zudarra hated them as well.

 

Zudarra set aside the bag and came to sit at Saraven's side.  She was about to do something to this man that he would find abhorrent.  Zudarra didn't understand his way of thinking; she could not view death as a gift, but she did not need to understand his views to respect his wishes.  What Zudarra was going to do was a completely selfish act, without regard to Saraven's own feelings.  She told herself she was protecting herself from the rage of Molag Bal, but Zudarra wasn't really sure if that were true.

 

“All right.  I'm doing it now,” she said stiffly, awkwardly, and reached out to pick up his arm.  It was so warm and light in her hand.  “I'll just drink a little.”  She really wasn't planning to take much, but she hoped that the blood loss would be enough to knock him out.

 

Gingerly she poised her fangs over the artery, the weak throb rousing her animalistic thirst.  She plunged through flesh and the gush of warmth in her mouth that followed almost made her lose her resolve.  It would have been so easy to do as he asked, to suck him dry, to give him the death he sought, to use his strength to save herself.

 

“Thank you,” Saraven whispered.  He felt the pinpricks of her fangs on his arm, and he was honestly grateful in that moment that he was still able to feel.  He did not mind it.  He raised the other hand to r un over her hair once, with the last of his strength, and then let it fall limp beside him.  He was quickly dizzy, but it was not unpleasant.  He felt detached, floating, moving away from pain and scorching thirst and into a deep, velvet darkness.  His head sagged forward as he lost consciousness.  

 

His pulse slowed under her lips.  Zudarra forced her mouth away, but she didn't pull up her head.  She bit her tongue – not an easy thing to do at all, it hurt terribly, tears sprang to her eyes and she stifled a grunt – and let the blood dribble into his wound before quickly healing herself with a flash of blue, and then him.  Still holding his limp arm, she gently wiped away the drops of blood with her thumb.  When she looked up his face was slack, relaxed, even peaceful.  He did not know what she had done.

 

Zudarra put Saraven's hand in his lap and stared at his lax face for a long while.  Her guts seemed to be twisting around themselves inside her.  He thanked her even as she betrayed him.  Zudarra wanted to bury her face in her hands, but there were still things to be done.  

 

She went back to the bag and shook everything out onto the ground, then laid the bag with the cleanest side facing up in the middle of the floor.  Then she came back to Saraven and began the shameful work of removing the armor padding from his torso and laying it down beside the bag for him to lie on.  Thankfully, he didn't stir as she carefully manipulated him like a rag doll.  He would face a horrible fever soon, in an already sweltering environment.  She remembered her own miserable transformation.  It was the worst sickness Zudarra had ever felt.  Like dying.

 

Zudarra gently laid the Dunmer down on his clothes, using the leather bag as a pillow.  She couldn't help that some of the liquid from the floor touched his arms, but that was the least of his concerns now.  She hesitated for a moment, examining the lean body bespeckled with old scars that lay before her.  Zudarra had a few of her own, but they weren't very visible beneath her fur, and their number was nothing compared to his.  All from vampires, she assumed.  Just how much had they taken from him?  His family, his blood, and now his dying wish and last shred of dignity.  She screwed shut her eyes and turned to grab a vial from the floor.  Saraven would remain mortal for three days yet, with all the needs that entailed.

 

She sat beside him in the filth, raising his head in her palm and slowly tipping a vial into his mouth.  Luckily, he swallowed without trouble and without waking despite the disagreeable taste of spoiled potion. 

 

There were so many uncertainties now.  The spoiled potions might kill him.  They might be disease cures.  What little water they contained might not be enough to keep him alive, and he still might die of dehydration while facing the additional agony of Porphyric Hemophilia.  Her selfish action might cause him needless suffering, and there was no way for Zudarra to know how it would end until it did.

 

Zudarra did not pray or beg the gods.  No god cared for her, and Saraven's would be turning her back on him soon.

 

* * *

 

 

He would not even stir for many hours, kept unconscious by blood loss and weakness.  After that the exhaustion of the disease's creeping progress would render him weak and mostly unaware of his surroundings.  His cheeks darkened almost to black, the dragon-wing markings rendered all but invisible as the fever rose. He did not sweat much.  There wasn't much fluid in his body.  

 

The second time that she fed him a potion he frowned as he swallowed it, apparently aware of the bitter taste.  His eyes fluttered open and his lips tried to shape words, but he lacked the strength.  At last he sighed and shut his eyes again as he lapsed into a heavy sleep that went on for hours more.

 

By the third potion he had become restless, his head twitching as he dreamed uneasily of blood and fire and darkness.  Daedra chased him through black halls and into the rainy streets of Kvatch, and the eyes of the dead watched him in grim accusation that he had not saved them.  He walked out of the city gate and onto the farm outside Cheydinhal.  Velaru was working in the front garden, pulling weeds, but he could not see their son anywhere.  He went up to speak with her, but she didn't seem to hear him.

 

Saraven grabbed weakly at Zudarra's arm and spoke to her urgently in Dunmeris, sunken eyes wide and unseeing:

 

“Velaru, nes vha'an Dorova? Nasha so relha!”

 

Zudarra almost yanked her arm away from the unexpected touch but instead she stopped, looking down tiredly at the mer beside her.  She recognized two names and nothing else.  Female and male.  Sister and brother?  Wife and son?  Saraven was terrified.  It was the first time since their meeting he had shown any strong emotion, let alone fear.

 

She hesitated, and took the hand on her arm into her palm.  She didn't know how to comfort someone, but holding their hand was basic enough.

 

“You're dreaming, Saraven.”  If she knew Dunmeris she might have answered in it, she might have said “We're all fine, we're all here,” to give him a pleasant dream.  But she did not know the language and she didn't know what else to do.  His scent was beginning to change and he was no longer appealing to her.  He began to smell of death, although his skin still burned against her pads.

 

Zudarra had no way to mark the time other than her own hunger, and it seemed that at least a day had passed.  Having liquid again might make him feel better, but she had to make the potions last.  She released her heal against his flesh to mend any possible brain damage from the extraordinary heat.  Zudarra had lain in her cool basement apartment when she suffered the disease.  The cool tingle of magicka might offer brief relief, in some small way, but Zudarra had to conserve this as well.

 

His hand trembled briefly in hers, and as the magicka hit his eyes fluttered as he struggled toward clarity.  He was burning, every inch of his flesh was on fire, and for a moment he felt relief.  He was lying on his back, hot air against the skin of his chest and arms, and the hand that held his was covered in fur.  Disorientation coalesced into brief understanding, and he opened his eyes to look up at Zudarra.  He could feel something happening in his mouth, gums shrinking around his teeth as some strange rearrangement went on inside.

 

“I know you,” he said, and sighed.  “Zudarra, why am I alive?”

 

Through the haze of her pleasure and the dread knotting her innards when she drank, Zudarra had been vaguely aware of his hand on her head.  The pressure and warmth of that soft, weak touch was burned into her memory.  Sometimes when she looked down at him, she could still feel it.  It was the only time in her adult life that Zudarra could remember receiving any sort of friendly touch that wasn't from her mother.

 

She never  _ wanted _ friendship, love, kindness – least of all from him.  Least of all now.

 

Zudarra was forced to remember it again, looking down at him pityingly.  Someone older and wiser, or just more empathetic and self-aware might have masked that emotion, but Zudarra was none of these things.  

 

“The dead Khajiit had potions in his bag.  I'm keeping you alive with them,” she said stiffly, ears held very still, too much a coward to tell him the truth.  She wished he would go back to sleep so she wouldn't have to face his questions.

 

He sighed and shut his eyes.  His voice was proud and exasperated.  “Stubborn...  Stubborn girl...”  His grip on her hand loosed as he drifted again.  He did not fully wake for a long time.  He swallowed when she poured a vial down his throat, sometimes twitching at the bitter taste.  Sometimes he shook when the fever was hottest, but he had not much energy for that.  He held tight to her hand as often as she let him, too weak to deny his need for her.  It was an anchor to a lesser horror.  While his hand touched fur he would wake for long enough to know where he was, and the ghosts would evaporate.

 

That went on for almost two days.  Dreams of fire blended into dreams of blood.  So much blood. Waterfalls and rains of blood, soaking his hair and clothes, coating him in red.  It ran down his throat and choked him.  It filled his eyes and ears and nose.  At first it horrified him, repulsed him.  And then he became used to it.  And then he wanted it, desperately thirsted for it.  

 

Outwardly his flesh grew paler.  His gray gums paled to almost white and shrank back from his teeth as his canines lengthened.  His eyes had always been red-on-red, like every Dunmer, but they grew richer and more saturated in color as time went on, the irises becoming faintly luminous in the dark room in the rare moments when his eyes were open.

 

At the last he dreamed that he knelt looking into a red lake, staring at his own strangely gaunt reflection.  He was thirsty, so thirsty, could not get the awful bitter taste of spoiled herbs out of his mouth.  Then his reflection reached out its arms and seized him and dragged him in, and his world was blood.

 

Outwardly his breath caught in his chest, rattling like a dried seed in a box.  His last exhalation was a long, drawn-out hiss between his dry lips.

 

When he had not breathed in five minutes, Saraven Gol opened his eyes on a changed world.  He was aware of Zudarra, strange scent of her that he had never noticed before, he was aware of the slosh of blood in her peripheral vessels and the silence of her heart.  Hearts.  He could hear hearts beating in the distance, blood passing through the vessels in ardent song.  There was nothing from the cell across the way.  Cliff-Diver had died quietly some time ago.  That grieved him to realize, but it was not a surprise.

 

He opened his mouth to speak and pricked his tongue on one of his own teeth.  He stopped, running his tongue over canines that seemed bizarrely sharp.  The fever had left him, and he felt stronger, ready to rise and run, though he was still dreadfully thirsty.

 

_ I was sick.  Probably for days.  I'm alive, and my teeth are sharp, and – I'm not breathing.  I do not hear my own heart beating. _

 

He jerked upright, grasping at his own wrist to try to find a pulse.  There was nothing.  He tried at the neck.  Nothing.  He looked around wildly for Zudarra.  

 

“What – what have you done?”

 


	14. Chapter 14

When Saraven breathed his last, Zudarra left his side to pace the room, tightly fisting the fur of her head and wallowing in the horror of what she had done.  She could not face him when he awoke.  Three days without any mental stimulation other than her own thoughts and raging thirst had stretched into something that felt like years.  Whatever endless torture Bal promised could not have lasted so long or been as painful as what she'd endured at the hands of her own conscience that feebly asserted itself after a lifetime of dormancy.  What little composure she normally commanded had eroded to dust under the wind of constant grief and shame.  

 

She felt her sanity slipping when Saraven finally spoke.

 

“What – what have you done?” 

 

“Don't you know?” Zudarra bitterly half-laughed, grasping the bars in one hand and looking out, not at him.  “I made you into the thing you hate most of all.  You can hear them, can't you?  I could hear Cania's heart beating, all the way upstairs.”

 

He stood up and almost shot forward onto his face again.  Something was wrong with his body.  Gravity seemed light.  He turned to pace to the other side of the room and was suddenly there, raising an arm to avoid smashing into the wall.

 

“Of course I hear them.  You bit me, and you kept me alive three days,” he whispered harshly.  He felt that his heart should be beating faster as fear and self-loathing subsumed him, but it did not.  It did not respond at all.  “Three days with porphyric hemophilia.  Good gods, Zudarra, what did I do to you that you should do such a thing to me?”  He turned to regard her, still leaning on the wall.  His face was twisted with horror, crimson eyes wide.

 

She turned to look at him, not moving from her place at the bars.  Her face crumpled into the bestial snarl of a wild animal, forehead wrinkling above hateful crimson eyes and fangs bared.

 

“You trusted a vampire and let her live when you should have followed your instincts, that's what you did,” she hissed.  The barbs she flung at him struck her own heart instead.  She didn't know how to be calm or gentle, so Zudarra returned to her comfortable rage.  She hated him for trusting her.  She hated herself for what she had done.  She told herself over and over again that she was doing him a favor; he was strong, he would live to close more gates and do the heroic deeds he wished to do.  It brought her no comfort, so she hated him all the more so Zudarra could hate herself less.

 

“You should thank me,” she continued, more evenly than before.  “I saved your life.”

 

“This is not life!”  Saraven automatically bared his sharp teeth in return, face contorted in a territorial self-defense reflex, and then he realized what he had done and jerked around to face away from her, covering his mouth with the back of one hand.   _ No.  I am not this thing.  No.  No. _

 

_ Get hold of yourself.  _  He was very still as he stood there, without the need to breathe, in a body no longer able to react to emotions by raising his temperature, pumping adrenaline into his blood to prepare him to fight or flee.

 

_ Think, mer. _  Vampires were ruled by thirst or by mind, and otherwise no bodily thing mattered.  The new ones had little control.  He had killed them easily because they fed stupidly, killing their victims and not bothering to cover their tracks.   _ So don't be stupid. _

 

But gods, the thirst.  The roots of his fangs itched, and his flesh felt shriveled over his bones, and he wanted blood, he needed it.  It assumed an importance he had never given it in all his life.

 

_ You have wanted other things in your life just as badly, and not had them, and survived.  Think. _

 

_ Zudarra is angry.  Of course she is.  She worked for three days alone in this stinking hell to keep you alive.  She did not take your life when she desperately needed to and now she is going mad with thirst and what do you say to her? _

 

“You did what you thought was best,” he said, more calmly.  “And you paid a high price, Zudarra.  I understand that.  But I can't thank you for this.”  He turned to walk over to the bars – slowly, working to keep his feet moving at a normal speed – and raised a hand to two of them to stare out up and down the hallway.  He was much more aware of the smell of blood than he had been before.  There was no getting used to it, no ignoring it now.

 

He tugged at the bars, testing.  They did not give.  He transferred the grip of both hands to one and braced his feet, hauling sideways away from the Khajiit.  Nothing moved, but from far above the metal complained.

 

_ Yes.  Only the very oldest are as strong as the very newest.  _  That burst of hysterical strength, meant to carry a fledgling through to finding their first drink, would only last a few hours before he started to shrivel into a gibbering corpse.  

 

“Well, come on,” he snapped at her.  “We have no time to waste.”

 

Zudarra stared uncomprehending at him – hours she had wasted yanking on the bars to no avail – but now she realized they had the strength of two vampires instead of one.  She quickly moved behind Saraven, grabbing the bar from over his head with both hands.  They pulled in unison, metal creaking under the strain, and just when Zudarra thought her muscles would give out the bar snapped off from the ceiling at the top.  It was easier to break the bar at the bottom now that they could lever their weight on it.

 

Hysterical joy surged in Zudarra as they threw down the bar and moved to the next.  Saraven might fit through the hole that they made, but she wouldn't.  The second bar seemed more difficult.  Zudarra was tired and thirsty and beginning to wish she had followed his advice about conserving her strength.  With a maniacal roar from Zudarra the second bar finally snapped free at the top, and then from the bottom.  Zudarra held onto it.  These were better than nothing until she had a proper weapon again.  Saraven took up the other bar.  Polearms were not his usual weapon, but it would do until he could get his hands on another one.  He was surprised at how light it felt.  

 

Zudarra followed Saraven into the long hall.  Cell upon cell stretched in either direction, but at the end of the hall to their left was a ramp leading up, keys on a peg hanging near the exit.  There were no guards.  Most of the noises from the other prisoners had ceased over the course of their stay as one by one they succumbed to dehydration or their wounds.  A few were still alive, presumably thanks to whatever supplies they might have had on their person that the dremora did not confiscate.  No one stirred and came to the bars to look for the source of the racket they had made.  Probably they were too weak or barely conscious.  

 

Saraven went directly to the key and took it down.  He wasn't going to leave anyone in here alive to suffer further, one way or another.  Maybe some of them could be saved.  The slightest concentration told him that his pool of magicka had expanded startlingly, a fact of vampirism of which he had been unaware.  It probably explained why Zudarra, who was subtle as a brick, could heal so effectively.

 

“All right, listen,” he growled.  “Anyone that can be healed and walk out of here, I'm taking them with us.  Anyone that can't, we're not leaving them here in torment.  Understand?  I'm not going to argue with you about this.”

 

Zudarra looked at him darkly.

 

“No, Saraven,” she said slowly, firmly, as if talking to a child.  In a way, she was.  She shoved in front of him, blocking the path with her considerable bulk.  “No one is coming with us.  You'll kill the first person you come to and probably the second and third.  These people are dying of thirst and can't defend themselves.  They probably can't even stand.  Think of yourself for once, and you'll be around to save the people who  _ can _ be saved.”  

 

Zudarra remembered it had taken every ounce of her willpower to get out the front door with Cania sleeping upstairs and hunt for her first victim.  She was lucky that she awoke from her fever in a dark city full of homeless who would never be missed.  She killed three that night.  She couldn't even remember their faces; unthinking frenzy and instinct carried her through her first feedings, and in the morning she could scarcely believe what she'd done.

 

If Saraven killed an innocent in that way, she knew he would never forgive himself.  Zudarra didn't especially like it, but it didn't weigh on her conscience as it would his.

 

He clenched his fist around the keys, baring his teeth at her again.  Impossible, ridiculous that he would leave cells full of dying people here inside a hell of daedric evil where they would be tormented forever, would become the walls, the floor, the railings -

 

_ Is it better or worse to die of dehydration than of being savaged to death by a vampire? _

 

_ There are two answers to that.  How much mind control do you think you will be capable of in your first few feedings, Saraven Gol?  How much have you seen new vampires exercise in their first rampage after they are changed?  Their victims do not die in ecstasy.  They die in confusion and in pain. _

 

“Damn you,” he said.  He should be shaking with rage, but he did not have that reflex any more.  It had gone with everything about him that had been mortal.  He could feel moisture in his eyes, the first time he had wept in longer than he could remember.  At least that was not gone forever.  “I am the monster you have made me.”  

 

He hung the keys back up with great care.  He would not give her the satisfaction of the kind of physical outburst she would have succumbed to in the same situation.  Then he turned to walk up the ramp, toward the roar of blood in daedric veins.

 

Zudarra had much to say to that, but her own shame clamped down on any retort before it could leave her mouth.  She clenched her fists, staring at the back of Saraven's head as she followed quietly, trying not to think of her thirst and failing.  She wanted to shove him aside and fly up the ramp to steal the prey from him, but he needed it more than she did.  She repeated this fact over and over in her mind.

 

The room at the top of the ramp was very much like the entry to the other towers they had seen, with another ramp spiraling up, but without any pillar of fire in the center.  Instead a large fountain of blood dominated the room, surrounded by stone benches.  A dremora clad in armor was standing guard at the single door, presumably the exit to the Deadlands.  There were bloodstains upon the floor where some prisoner had been dragged across toward the dungeon.  The dremora did not notice them immediately without the clank of armor to alert him; the fountain was between them, and he was staring dully at it.

 

The scent and sound and color of the fountain exploded across Saraven’s senses in such a way as to obliterate all thought, and he was halfway across the room without the bar in his hand – it was on the floor near the doorway - when he had enough control of himself to know what he was doing.  He changed course, whipping around the pillar even as the dremora started to turn toward the noise of the dropped bar.  The daedra seemed to move with dreamlike slowness.  Saraven Gol had been fast when he was mortal.  As a vampire he was bottled lightning.  He was behind the taller creature yanking his helmet off before the guard had even spotted Zudarra on the ramp.  His grunt of surprise seemed to stretch out into a basso roar, slow and elongated in the quarter second that it took for Saraven to kick him in the back of the knee – bones in his foot shattered and he did not feel it in the slightest – and then lace his fingers into the dremora's hair so he could yank his head to the side and plant his fangs in the great artery in his throat.

 

Everything seemed to explode.

 

He was not a complete stranger to pleasures of the flesh.  He had spent his share of long afternoons in the Guild bunk hall with a mate he would see once and never again.  All of that paled in comparison to the fireworks that went off throughout his entire body as he fed for the first time.  It was not like orgasm, it was better, and it went on for longer, and he never wanted it to end.  He was only dimly aware of sound behind him, the roar of the daedra's blood in his veins rushing around and back up and into Saraven as he thirstily drank drowned out all.  Blood had no taste but pleasure until he was forced to stop because it stopped coming.  The furious heart had given out for lack of blood.  He tore his mouth away, snarling, fangs dripping.

 

Slowly he came to himself.  He was standing bent over the shriveled corpse of a dremora on its knees.  He let go and stepped back, hand to his mouth, and tears formed in his eyes again as he realized what he had done and how easily, with how little resistance he had done it.  He had not noticed the bones of his foot healing, but it had happened.

 

_ No.  I am not this thing!  _  He looked around for Zudarra, for the source of his horror and torment.

 

She had gone three days without drinking and he had not offered her a single drop, he realized belatedly.  Conflicting emotions warred across his mind, across his face.

 

Zudarra had run after him and stopped a few feet away, watching as Saraven fed while a mixture of unpleasant emotions twisted in her guts.  Paramount among them was bitter envy.  Her eyes were glued to the dremora's neck where Saraven had attached himself.  He looked a mindless monster now, and in the back of her mind Zudarra realized this is what Saraven saw as she fed, but she was too preoccupied with hunger to be disgusted with herself.   She licked her fangs as the body lost its color, imagining the hot rush of pleasure she might have experienced instead of Saraven.  Slowly her eyes tracked back to his face when he stood, where the deepest pain was clearly written in his eyes.  She quickly averted her gaze to the corpse. 

 

“It's a dremora,” Zudarra said coldly.  Even as she spoke she knew she should not be so harsh to him, but it was too late.  “He deserved to die.  You've done nothing wrong.”

 

He found his voice with difficulty.   _ Forward.  Worry about the rest later. _

 

“You take the next one,” he said.  He lowered the body as he knelt to search it.  He had a war-axe, an unfamiliar potion, and a belt knife, a jagged-edged wicked little thing with a handle that seemed of one piece with the black-and-red blade.  Saraven took the knife and slid the axe across the floor toward Zudarra, listening to it strike sparks from the black floor.  The dremora's armor would never fit him.  The creature had been a good foot taller and bulkier in proportion.

 

He went to the door to pry it open – it was so easy now.  He still felt thirst, was still strongly aware of the blood fountain bubbling and giving off its fragrance behind him, but it was less.  He felt stronger than he could ever remember being even when he was a young mer.

 

A blast of hot air hit him in the face as the twin halves of the door crackled and slid apart.

 

Zudarra winced at the light of the outside world, the first time in at least four days her pupils had any reason to constrict.  Saraven had to throw up an arm to protect his eyes as well, until they adjusted.  Another tower was nearby, a walkway high above them connecting it with its neighbor.  The towers were situated on an island crawling with metallic red grass that glinted in the light, an ocean of lava bubbling all around them.  They were at the top of a hill, and far away down the slope they could see the gate they had come from, surrounded by a mob of dremora.  From this distance they could see a writhing black mass more than they could pick out individuals.

 

Zudarra took care to avoid the sharp-looking grass, keeping to the walkway trampled free of life by daedric boots, and pulled open the door to the second tower.  This time the familiar humming pillar greeted them, along with an empty room.

 

He followed Zudarra into the second tower and stopped dead.  The pillar rose in front of them from a small well of what looked like liquid flame, yellow-white and brilliant and swirling in the dark.  Its throbbing hum seemed to seep into his bones.  Once he had found it tooth-settingly wrong, a constant irritation.  Now it insinuated itself into his consciousness as a seductive sound, the coherent power of the flame.

 

_ If I fell into that I would immediately be ashes.  There would hardly be time to know what was happening. _

 

The thirst would end.  The rage and grief would end.  And he would end, as he should have ended in the cell surrounded by people he could not save.

 

But Zudarra was already moving.  He forced himself to turn and follow her, keeping his eyes away from the pillar as they climbed.  

 

They made their way up, encountering silence and emptiness, and Zudarra began to regret not drinking from the fountain.  The blood of the dead, no matter how freshly deceased was never quite appealing to her, nor was blood outside of the arteries.  It was some deeply ingrained instinct, just as she would not to eat spoiled food as a mortal unless her life depended on it.

 

Saraven hoped for some distraction, at least for them to find another dremora for her to feed on.  It would be hard to watch, but he needed that exercise in discipline, needed desperately to know that he could do it.  No remedy came, and then she turned aside in front of him to peer into an empty room and he was left facing the pillar across a railing again.

 

“The people of Leyawiin must really be giving them hell,” Zudarra muttered, leaning inside the doorway and finding nothing of interest inside.  They were about halfway up the tower now, the glistening red membrane drawing ever closer above their heads.  “Or maybe every available man is out guarding the portal.”

 

He did not hear the words she said.  He was staring silently into the light.

 

She backed out of the doorway and turned to see him staring at the pillar, and instantly knew exactly what he was thinking.  A funny look came over her face as she slowly approached him, confusion and pity and guilt all rolled together.  Her tongue fluttered against her teeth, then stopped, and she remained silent.

 

“I'm sorry,” she finally said.  The phrase weighed more than the moons, and she struggled to drag it from her throat.

 

He jerked as if she had struck him, shutting his eyes.  He had been someone who would have been very proud of her for saying those words.  In the moment when he believed he was dying he had been that mer.  It had been the best moment in thirty years of self-denial and misery, to be so sure he was dying in a way that would mean something to someone.

 

But falling into the pillar would not help anyone.  No lives would be saved.  And she would have to go on and close the gate alone, and her three days of agony would have been for nothing.

 

_ Don't tell yourself she would not suffer.  You know that she would.  She's not less able to feel pain than you are no matter how much you hate what she has done, Saraven Gol. _

 

“Thank you,” he said quietly.  His thanks only made her feel worse.  A normal person would be mad at her still.  A normal person would argue and accuse, would tell Zudarra all the awful truths about herself that both of them knew.  Saraven was far from a normal person.  She wished that she could understand, but now was not the time to dwell on his inexplicable nature or her misdeeds.

 

He turned away, opening his eyes, and laid a hand on her arm as he started up the ramp again.  “It can't be for nothing.  Come on.”

 

Zudarra twitched at the hand on her arm, but then it was gone and he was walking away.  The pressure and warmth remained – a false warmth.  His hands were cold, lifeless, artificially warmed by the sweltering air around them.  She wished that she had met him years ago before both their bodies had grown cold, that she might have known a friendly touch before letting herself turn into a monster and dragging him down with her.  The thought shocked her, and Zudarra's nose stung.

 

She followed silently.

 

It was a few minutes later that they heard a heart in the distance, then soft footsteps.  The roots of Saraven’s fangs itched again, and the thirst he had thought sated woke.  He fought with himself not to break into a run.   _ No.  This one is hers.  _  He told himself so then, and when he saw the robed dremora emerging on the walkway from below the red dome, and when he flattened himself to the wall to avoid the fireball whizzing past –  

 

Zudarra dodged aside with ease.  When the dremora saw how quickly she moved, he turned to run back up the slope.  It was a mistake on his part, because Zudarra was on him in a flash, claws closing around his face as she yanked him back to her mouth.

 

– and then Saraven sprinted after her when he saw her move.  He could taste it on the air, as if there were tiny drops of blood emulsing into the atmosphere around the creature and just begging to be drunk, it was completely irresistible.  He literally tried to grab the dremora away from her, fangs bared, seizing the creature's shoulder in his hands.

 

Zudarra snarled, backhanding Saraven across the face and tearing the struggling mage away even as her fangs sunk into his neck.  She caught the dremora's wrists, yanking his arms up and away from her just as fire shot out to explode against the ceiling, then jerked them down with enough force to wrench arms from socket and crush the bones of his wrists.  She watched Saraven from the corner of an eye rolled back in ecstasy.  The dremora was screaming and thrashing, trying to kick at her, but she dug in with her claws and didn’t let go.  His kicking feet would leave no bruises on her unarmored legs; they healed as she drank, any small pain unnoticed as liquid pleasure gushed down her throat.

 

The blow stunned Saraven for a second, turned him halfway around as he fell against the wall.  Pain restored his sanity and he leaned on one upraised arm, fighting with himself, lips peeled back from his teeth.  He fought down the obscene need, but only because he knew she had a good grip now and the dremora would be dead before he could get anything.  Tears formed in his eyes again, the third time today, the third time in twenty years and more.

 

_ This is not who I am!  She needs it more than I do!  Before I changed into this thing I would have fetched her one with my own hands and hit it in the head first if that helped.  I did, once.  Oh gods.  I can't live this way. _

 

No god answered him.  Why should they?  Only Molag and the Vile paid close attention to vampires as anything but monsters for the righteous to strike down.  And that was good and right, damn it.  The thing that he was now should not be allowed to exist.  What if this had happened in a town?

 

_ Calm yourself.  It would not have happened in a town.  She only did it because it was the only way for her to escape the cell.  The fact is that you were selfish, Saraven Gol.  If she had just killed you, she would have starved alone until she was mad and then shriveled into a mummy.  Is that what you wanted? _

 

He looked away until the noise and tumult finally subsided and the creature's gnarled corpse was falling to the floor.

 

“I'm not like this,” he said, voice harsh and desperate as he walked past her.  He flicked the knife out of his waistband.  There should be at least two more, and one should be in armor, and he didn't care.  They were about to die.

 

A thrill of power shuddered through Zudarra’s body; she barely registered that Saraven had spoken.  Nothing mattered but blood, power, pleasure.  She had ached for this sensation during those four days of starvation that had seemed to last a lifetime.  She needed more!  She almost sprinted past Saraven before he could steal the next prey when she remembered her dropped axe.  It was in her hand and she was by Saraven's side in a blur.  The thinking part of her reasserted itself and she slowed to match his pace.  There would be enough dremora for them to share, Zudarra knew this, but still the presence of another vampire made her anxious.  How could they stand to live in colonies as they did?  Did it ever get easier?

 

An armored dremora, drawn by the screams of the mage, emerged from the dome and clattered toward them on the walkway, longsword already drawn.  The crimson runes scrawled across the black metal blazed maliciously in the firelight of the pillar as she charged them.

 

_ Longsword. _  Saraven's eyes narrowed, and he became an indistinguishable blur of movement as he darted forward and past the armored dremora, one hand rising to snatch at the helmet.  It was so easy now.   He had gone years with faint aches and creaks in his joints that were so familiar he had just forgotten they were there, a normal background to his days.  Now they were gone and every muscle and tendon behaved as if he were thirty again.  Now he bashed at the back of the creature's skull with the hilt of the knife.  He had to literally bite his own tongue to keep control, his own blood dribbling down his throat; the taste of it was dull and dead and awful and most importantly distracting.

 

_ Mine!  _  Zudarra stifled a possessive hiss.  It was his turn to feed, not hers.  She hung back to let him do it without fear that she would snatch the dremora away, as he had tried.  Zudarra was proud of the restraint she had cultivated.  He may not believe it now, with the first thirst still raging, but he would learn that it was possible.

 

The harsh crack of skull caving in brought her to the present.  The dremora sagged, sword dropping to the ground.  Zudarra caught it with her foot before it could slide down the ramp.

 

Saraven swore viciously under his breath.  He'd hit the thing too hard, forgetting how much stronger he was now than he had been mortal.  He snatched at the falling dremora to fasten his teeth to its throat, snarling as he drank.  He sucked in a few mouthfuls before the heart finally decided the brain had died and quit, but it was too little, over too fast.  He dropped the body with a snarl and went after the sword.

 

“Get the other one,” he growled as he bent to scoop it off the ramp.  “I'll get the stone.  I don't want to see you, damn it.  Hurry.”

 

He shoved the dagger into the back of his pants and started for the stairs to the upper level at a fast walk, trying to hold down his speed so that he would be a visible target and distract the mage from Zudarra – there it was, a lightning bolt crackled past some three feet from his elbow, raising the hairs on his arm.  They had no prayer of hitting him as he was now.  None at all.

 

Zudarra sprinted toward the second set of steps at the further end of the dome, hoping the mage was too focused on the Dunmer to notice her.  She heard lightning boom against the ground far behind her and then she was on the balcony, circling around behind the daedra.  The mage had heard the patter of her feet too late over the roar of the pillar.  He turned far too slowly to react before the blunt side of her axe came swinging down at his head with the perfect level of restraint, born of countless hours of practice to appear mortal for the arena spectators.  

 

She caught him before he hit the floor, fangs sinking deep into his neck.  Zudarra had already resolved to share this one, despite Saraven's directions to the contrary.  She was exceptionally hungry from her days of starvation, but she really didn't  _ need  _ more.  Saraven might actually need it.  It might save him from attacking an innocent mortal after the gate closed.

 

Zudarra tore herself away from the dremora just as Saraven cleared the top of the steps.  Fresh blood dripped from the fur of her chin.  She held him out by the collar, an offering to the Dunmer.  The dremora moaned, head lolling to the side.

 

The rich smell of daedric blood exposed to the air hit his nostrils and stopped Saraven in his tracks.  He turned entirely against his will to see Zudarra holding a dremora by the collar of his robe, holding him out.  It took all of his will not to drop the longsword completely as he lunged forward, but he managed to keep his grip as he seized the creature around the waist and bit and drank.  He couldn't drink from the existing punctures.  He didn't know why.

 

“Ngh.”  His eyes rolled upward as the blood poured into his mouth.  It was just as good as it had been the first time.  He was helpless in the face of that crushing wave of pleasure.  No wonder they were always so easy to kill while they were feeding.  He had wondered many times at their stupidity.

 

It didn't last long before the heart gave out.  He dropped the desiccated body and let it slide away down the stairs as he wiped his mouth, gasping even though he didn't need air.

 

Last chance.  The pillar still stood in front of him, singing its promise of fiery annihilation.  He stared at it for a long moment.  Then he turned to invert the longsword and thrust the hilt at the sigil stone.  It hit with a resounding crack, and he watched as the stone bounced away down toward the floor.  He looked up to watch the ceiling start to subside with unbelievable majesty, and then everything dropped away below his feet and he fell.


	15. Chapter 15

 

Zudarra watched Saraven wearily, ready to knock the stone out of the fire if he wasn't going to, but then he did and explosions sounded from deep within the earth as the tower shook and crumbled all around them.  One second she was falling from the broken balcony, and the next she was landing in the rubble of the black pillars outside the smoking ruins of Western Leyawiin.  It was early morning, a thick fog rolling in from the river and obscuring the sun.  Even if Magnus had shone on them with full power, neither of them would have felt it now. 

 

The blackened field before the city was littered with mortal bodies several days into decay.  Here and there the weapons of daedra had been dropped and left behind, but any corpses had returned to their own realm days ago.  Zudarra inhaled deeply, appreciating the cool, moist air of Nirn, the scent of wood and smoke and the sea carried on a gentle breeze.  Even the stink of death didn't trouble her, after a lifetime spent in the festering hellhole of Dagon's dungeon.  Her relief was short lived when her eyes landed on Saraven, and she knew something would have to be done about him.  

 

He couldn't live off dremora forever.  He would have to feed from a mortal, sometime soon.  Zudarra had not given any thought to anything past their escape, and now the horror of what she'd done revived itself.  She suppressed it, and began rooting through the discarded weapons to find something bigger than the war axe without a word to him.

 

* * *

 

 

Saraven landed on bare dirt, rolling to his feet quickly as he looked around.  Cool air rose around him like water, a gentle relief against his naked upper body.  Mist obscured some of the carnage before them, but he was more strongly aware of the scents and sounds than he had ever been.  Even this abandoned battlefield was still more pleasant than the Deadlands.  That had not changed with his undeath.

 

He was in Nirn now.  Saraven thrust the tip of his sword into the earth and leaned on the hilt with one arm, looking at the ground.   _ How long until I meet my first living mortal?  Will I be able to keep from attacking them on sight?   _ He grieved the dying souls they had left behind in the prison, now lost forever.  He was still not completely sure that leaving the portal alive had been the right decision.  Once they were in the portal room, Zudarra's escape had been assured.  And now here he was, an animate undead with a terrible thirst, a danger to everyone he met.

 

He sought for some distraction, any distraction at all.  Zudarra was searching the bodies for weapons.  He should try to find a baldric for himself.  Maybe a mail shirt.  Some of the dead were men of medium size, and he was still unclad from the waist up.  For that matter, he'd be glad to throw away everything he was wearing now.  He regretted the loss of his mithral chain – it had been with him many years – but it was not irreplaceable.  If he was going to survive he would be able to find mithral again.

 

As he moved to a corpse that had already de-bloated and was starting to leak – he wasn't putting on that pair of pants, but the chainmail shirt under the guard tabard might serve – his mind hunted back over things she had said.

 

“Who is Cania?” he asked after a moment, as he worked at wrestling the chain shirt off the stiff limbs.

 

“Hm?” Zudarra asked, wondering how he knew that name before she remembered her mad rambling in the cell.  She welcomed the conversation, anything to distract from her other thoughts.  “Oh.  She's just my landlord in the Imperial City.  Nobody important to me.”  Zudarra stopped, narrowing her eyes.  “I wonder if she's given my room away by now.  Probably expects I died in Kvatch, since I never returned from it.  Ugh.”

 

She picked up a battle axe covered in dried blood and dew, the largest thing she could find.  She wiped moisture off the blade with her own filthy sleeve.

 

“We should go to the river and wash.  I don't think it's a good idea to venture into town right now,” she said carefully, watching Saraven's face.  “Wonder if Galmir took off yet.”

 

Galmir.  Saraven did not look forward to his first sight – and scent – of the Bosmer, whom he had always pitied and whom he must now carnally desire to harm.  He did not want to ratify the death of that part of himself, the birth of this monstrosity that he now was.  He shut his eyes for a second, gathering himself, fist full of dirty chainmail.  Then he stood up with mail shirt in one hand, the belt wadded up around it, and his new longsword in the other.  The links would chafe his bare skin.  Maybe it would distract him.

 

“He won't have.  You're his only reason to stay alive,” Saraven said.  He turned toward the river, fighting to keep his tone level.  “You may have to hit me again when we see him.  I don't know.”

 

“I'll meet you at the river with the horses,” Zudarra said, choosing to ignore his morbid comment.  He'd be fine left alone for a few minutes, and Zudarra needed to get away from him.  Guilt was an entirely new emotion for her, and it was overwhelming.  She knew she had made the wrong choice.  She should have killed him when he asked.  Now she was burdened with the shame, and with him.  He was like a child she had to care for and she didn't want the responsibility.  Dragging along a mindless thrall was already an annoyance to her, let alone a depressed fledgling vampire.

 

Saraven was right: Galmir hadn't run off.  He had unsaddled all of the horses and built a sad little lean-to out of sticks against a low branch and covered it with leaves.  He was asleep underneath it when she approached.  A sharpened stick lay beside him, and the bones of fish were strewn in the remains of the fire.

 

“Galmir,” she said, standing outside his little shelter.  She was impressed that he'd been able to think for himself enough to build it.  Instantly he jolted awake with a surprised cry and scrabbled out, mouth slack with wonder.

 

“Zudarra!” he cried, eyes welling with happy tears.  He almost threw himself at her, but she stepped back, frowning.  His face was pink and healthy, having had four long days of rest to build up his strength.

 

“I'm so sorry,” he gibbered, “But I got into Saraven's bag and ate some of his food!  Gods, I was wondering if the two of you had died.  I was so distraught, thinking about-”

 

“It's fine,” Zudarra said impatiently.  “Help me saddle the horses and pack up the gear.  And listen.  Saraven is like me now, a vampire, do you understand?  You'll feed him if he asks, but only in my presence.”   _ As if the Bosmer could stop him otherwise, _ she thought.

 

“Oh dear,” Galmir said, and scurried around to clean up the camp.  He had drug their bags under the trees to protect them from rain.

 

As she saddled Shadow, who for once seemed eager to see her and snuffled happily at her ears, Zudarra seriously considered riding away.  She could leave Galmir, Saraven, and her guilty conscience behind in this place.  Go back to Anvil.  Forget these people ever existed.  Saraven would go on a rampage and kill himself out of guilt afterward, and then he'd be dead like he wanted and not her problem anymore.  Molag Bal could scarcely hold her responsible for what Saraven did to himself.

 

Instead she closed her eyes for a long moment, listening to Galmir puttering around behind her and the absence of her heartbeat.  She opened her eyes with reluctant resolve and continued her work.  Then she led Shadow and Ves down to the the river while Galmir followed with the necromancer’s horses, walking comically fast to keep up with their long-legged stride.

 

* * *

 

 

Saraven stuck the sword into the mud, draped the chainmail around the hilt, and waded into the water up to his chest.  It was cold, but the cold did not cause him to shiver, did not cause his flesh to recoil.  Hypothermia would never be a danger to him again.  Unless his body literally froze to the point of being unable to move, to the point of crystals forming and damaging the tissue, cold could not harm a dead body.  The current tugging at him was a mild annoyance, nothing more.

 

He washed himself as best he could first, using a handful of sand from the bottom to scrape away the filth that had crusted on his arms while he lay in the cell.  He would never sweat again, unless he overfed to the point of sweating blood, and that was almost impossible for a young one.  Things that he had learned over a lifetime of hunting kept recurring to his mind, and every fact remembered was a new horror as he realized anew that he had been learning what he would become.

 

He took off his padding trousers and soft shoes and washed those out as best he could.  There was no one to see, no boat traffic up the bay, no one out here doing laundry.  He could see the masts of a couple of boats off in the misty distance, people risking fishing because they lived near the river and could not imagine fleeing even though the city was under attack.  

 

When he had put his wet pants and shoes back on he went to get the chainmail and wash that out, too.  He could not change what he now was.  All he could do was get rid of the stink of putrescence as much as possible.  It would tarnish as it dried, might eventually rust if it didn't dry fast enough, but it was at best a stopgap.  If he was going to go on he would have to find real armor.

 

The weight of it seemed insignificant.  He tugged at his own sleeve in puzzlement, wondering why it felt as though he were wearing nothing, until he remembered.  Then he set about belting it on.  It was not tremendously modest, and it did chafe as he had expected, a cilice for his entire torso; but it would turn a sword or blunt an axe at the right angle, and that was the important thing.

 

Oh yes.  That was the important thing.  Having something that needed doing had kept him going for thirty years.  It would have to keep him going for – he crumpled around himself, arms tightly hugging his own body as he sank to his knees on the grassy bank.

 

_ Forever.  If I am not killed I will live forever. Like this. _

 

He would grow colder still, and amused by other people's discomfort, and at last would commit atrocities just because he was bored.

 

_ Get up, damn you.  You become what you choose to become.  Zudarra is not what you thought she was when you met.  You don't have to become one of the old monsters you have slain.  Get up.  Get up. _

 

Saraven hauled himself to his feet, plucked the sword from the bank, and cleaned it with a handful of grass.  Somewhere in Leyawiin there was a dremora with a baldric and a beating heart.  

 

He heard hoofbeats, and not long after that he heard a heart beating.  It was small, weak, not the furious assault on the entire concept of circulation that was a dremora.  It awakened his lust, but he found that he did not run after it against his will.  He was able to stand and wait.  It was a small, pathetic victory, but it gave him a germ of hope.

 

Zudarra spotted the lone figure on the shore and eyed him carefully as she approached.  He didn't move, and her fists relaxed their tense grip on the reigns.  Galmir was oblivious to the danger he might have been in, sternly reprimanding the horses as they dragged him to the water to drink.  He said hello to the Dunmer as he passed.

 

“Morning, Galmir,” he said back quite calmly.  He watched the appaloosa snorfle the Bosmer's ear as they went past.  At least the change in his scent did not bolt the horses.  They had become accustomed to Zudarra.

 

He was dimly aware that the horses were there and alive, but their blood did not attract his attention in the same way, as he had expected.  He had a backup set of linens, but that was all, and he saw no use in changing now.  Wearing wet clothes was not exactly comfortable, and certainly the unpadded chain shirt was not, but he was starting to feel grateful for that.  Every time he started to feel twitchy or focus too closely on the Bosmer he had only to shift position slightly and a hundred small discomforts drew his attention away.

 

Zudarra was desperate to be out of her stinking clothes and scrub the dried crap out of her fur, but she couldn't completely trust Saraven alone with Galmir despite his show of restraint.  That meant she wasn’t going to be able to bathe in privacy.

 

“Don't look if you don't want to see,” she said, releasing the horses to let them take themselves to the river.  She yanked her bag of spare clothes off Shadow's back as he trotted alongside and tossed her battle axe onto the grass.  She threw her bag on the shore and, once submerged in the cold water with her back turned to the others, ripped the crusty padding over her head and flung it as far down the river as she could.  She never wanted to see it again.  She shucked off her pants, flinging that away also, and scrubbed herself feverishly with sand.

 

Galmir reddened when he realized the vampire was disrobing in the water in front of him.  He stammered an apology and raced back up the bank, where he stopped bent over with his hands on his knees, wheezing as he fought to catch his breath.  It was the most exercise he'd had that week.  At length he stood up, hands on his back, and stretched back to look at the sky.  The rising sun was a pale blotch beyond the mist. 

 

“You two were, uh, sure gone for a long while this time,” he said to the Dunmer, breathlessly. 

 

“We were ambushed,” Saraven explained to the Bosmer.  “Trapped in a cell.  It took the strength of two vampires to get the bars apart, and it takes three days for porphyric hemophilia to run its course.”  And in short sentences he had summarized the entire disaster.  He still could not fault her logic even if he was not sure he would ever be able to forgive her.

 

Saraven was aware of Zudarra from the corner of his eye, but he was indifferent to the Khajiit's body, as he had always been; beyond glancing over there to make sure she was doing all right he paid no attention.  She had the expected scars over her muscular arms and legs, and her fur was a slightly different pattern than he had thought it would be, that was -

 

He felt a thrill of something strange and different.  For an instant he was strongly aware of her in a way he had not been before, the silence of her heart, the size and shape of her, the glint of the sun on her sharp teeth.  He knew when she had fed last and how much, and not only from memory, he could sense daedric blood in her veins and knew she had not tasted Galmir while she was gone.  Something in his mind whispered strength, and approved, was ready to follow her straight into another gate that minute if it meant a chance at feeding from her kill.

 

_ What is happening to me? _

 

Was this what drew vampires back to their sires, to cluster in a lonely cavern and herd their thralls together in a pack?  In all his years he had never understood it.  The few he had talked with had never brought it up.

 

He realized he was staring at her, eyes wide, and looked quickly away.  Zudarra glanced back at the shore at that moment and thought she saw his head whip away.  She narrowed her eyes at him and returned to bathing.

 

“Did anything happen while we were gone?” Saraven asked.  Galmir shook his head.

 

“It was awfully quiet out here, just me and the horses.  The first day, some people in a wagon came up the road, but they turned straight around when they saw the gate in front of the city.  The second day a boat full of Khajiits–”

 

Zudarra listened to Galmir's chatter.  His personality was beginning to assert itself again; If they had been away for any longer, he might really have left.  She slogged up to the shore to grab her fresh clothes – they would have to go on wet – and Saraven allowed himself to glance that way again as she emerged from the water.  

 

_ Strength _ .  Would that impulse fade if she showed weakness, he wondered, if she were injured and unable to defend herself?  He'd seen vampires turn on each other readily enough.

 

She came up behind them a minute later, clean wet fur plastered to her body.  She looked eighty pounds lighter without her fluff.  Her armor padding was thick enough that it didn't soak all the way through, but she moved stiffly with the discomfort of wearing wet clothes.  Zudarra shook her head, flinging droplets of water at the men and stopped between them, picking one of her ears with a claw.

 

“I don't know what I'll do about armor,” Zudarra said.  “The gold gifted us by the Count isn't nearly enough to replace the set I lost, if I could even find someone left alive to forge it.  Good thing you found that mail.  Maybe I ought to have picked some up, too.”

 

“West Leyawiin is full of corpses,” he said.  “We might find some fallen fighter or mercenary in heavy iron that's big enough and hammer it 'til it fits.  There should've been several between the Guild and the Blackwood company.”

 

Zudarra would have rather kept out of the town altogether.  They closed the gate; let the people of Leyawiin retake their own damn city.  It's not as if any reinforcements would come from the Deadlands.  But she supposed Saraven would not share her opinion.

 

“All right,” she said, fetching her axe from the ground.  The horses had ambled away from the water to graze nearby, more or less sticking together.  “Galmir, take care of the horses.  We're going to see what's happened inside the city.”  Saraven had been chatting peacefully with her thrall long enough that she was convinced he could control himself around any survivors.

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra no longer had to restrain herself for Saraven's sake.  She zipped across the field toward the Western gate, light as  a feather without her armor.  They slowed at the burned front gate, moving more cautiously through the empty streets.  As they moved East, they saw fewer burned houses and fresher bodies dispersed among the old.  Some were daedric.  Zudarra was able to scavenge a harness for her battle axe.  She wasn't having much luck with anything else.

 

Over time it got easier for Saraven to control how fast or slow he moved.  Keeping up with Zudarra was not even a challenge.  He found a baldric and scabbard for his sword on a dremora with his throat cut from ear to ear.  The body was near one of the city's many little canals, blood dripping away into the water and forming a crimson cloud.  He collected a couple of scrolls of Silence and Fatigue Drain from different bodies as they passed.  With a little practice he could stop, go through a corpse's pockets and run to catch up with Zudarra without ever prompting her to slow down.

 

Black smoke rose a few blocks away from the river that cut through town, and Zudarra could make out the roar of metallic voices.  She exchanged a quick glance with Saraven before sprinting after the sounds.  Rounding a corner, they saw that a squad of dremora at least ten strong had encircled a two-story building.  It had been a tavern, as evidenced by the hanging sign bearing the emblem of a pitcher of ale.  The door had been barricaded with broken furniture but now a fire raged in the lower level.  The windows of the upper floor were all smashed and Zudarra thought she saw a flash of movement from inside.  Broken arrows and a few daedric bodies littered the street outside, but it didn't seem anyone in the tavern was retaliating now.

 

Most of the dremora were warriors; Zudarra only picked out two mages.  None of them had noticed the newcomers yet, and the vampires shrank back around the corner of a house before the dremora could turn to see.  The daedra were mostly clustered together, jeering at the high windows with their weapons raised to the sky.

 

It was too loud and the hearts of the dremora were too many to tell if there were surviving mortals inside.  Saraven twisted his hand into the hem of the chainmail, grinding flesh against metal.  Sprinting straight up to them to drink without even getting out his weapon would result in his death, but that was exactly what he had to fight the urge to do.  The sky overhead was gray, but it had not begun to rain, not even that little respite for the people trapped in the burning tavern.

 

“Mages first,” Saraven said.  “One each.  Then we lead the others away in different directions so they have to split up.  Then we pick them off as fast as we can.  At least that'll leave it clear for them to climb out the upper windows, hang by their arms and jump.”

 

Zudarra nodded.

 

“I've got the one on the right,” she said, raising the battle axe to her chest and leaning round the corner with crimson eyes trained on her prey.  She added, without looking at Saraven, “Don't let the power go to your head.  Run if you're overwhelmed.”  

 

“Right,” he sighed.

 

She sprinted for the small crowd, nearly silent without her armor.  Too late the dremora began to turn to them, but the black steel of her axe was already slicing through the back of her mage's neck with a meaty thwack.  He hadn't turned in time to see what killed him, but others had.  She yanked the blade from the half-severed neck and danced back to avoid a toothed sword sailing down toward her head.

Saraven put on a burst of speed as he drew his sword, catching up at just about the time he heard the distinctive sound of an axe chopping through a spinal cord.  He danced behind the mage on the left and spitted her through the chest, producing a scream indicative of rage as much as pain before she went limp and he shoved the corpse off the blade with one foot, lust twisting in his gut as he listened to the thundering heart give out and fall silent.  Dremora around them turned with balletic slowness at the noise, and he kicked the back of one armored male's knee as he headed off down the street, deliberately slowing down so that they could see where he was going.  He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from pausing to feed.  He had never wanted anything physical this badly.  He shouldn't even be very hungry and he ached for it, he hurt for it in every cell.

 

There was a brief discussion in the Kyntongue which mostly consisted of furious screaming, and then he heard the tramp of running feet behind him as the dremora split off, some after Zudarra, some after him.  A throwing knife whistled past his head at about a normal running speed, and he plucked it out of the air and turned to throw it back.  It clanged off a gorget, striking sparks and producing a flood of what he assumed were probably insults.

 

_ Split them up, split them up.  _  The Chapel up ahead was barricaded, and they'd presumably left it to pursue easier targets; there were a few dead clannfear and scamps scattered around outside.  A large cemetery sprawled out to one side of the building, full of individual headstones of many sizes, obelisks, and a couple of mausoleums.   _ Perfect.  _  He sped up as he darted in among the stones, so that they could see roughly where he had gone but not his specific hiding place.  There was a brief discussion in the dremoras' guttural tongue, and then they split up, fanning out to move between the tombstones.  He could hear their beating hearts move apart from one another in space.  He ran as fast as he could to the far fence, then around the corner to stand behind an obelisk, facing the one on the far end.  He counted softly to himself as he watched that solitary dremora, waiting for him to pass behind a taller monument, hidden from the others.  

 

In that moment he sprinted forward, darting from tall tombstone to fat column as he circled around.  They were aware of the wind of his passing, but they could not see him.  Finally he came up behind his chosen target, his empty left hand reaching out from behind as he let the lightning go.  The light flared, alerting the others, but he couldn't care about that because the dremora was on his knees screaming and twitching and now was a perfect time to - 

 

Saraven jerked his lips away from the dremora's throat, listening to the sound of running feet approaching, and dove and rolled away from the corpse just in time to avoid having a war-axe buried in his skull.  Alien ecstasy still bloomed in every nerve for a half-second after he had detached, slowing him down, but then he was on his feet and running again.  He loosed another lightning bolt at one of the others, and they converged on the source of the spell even as Saraven came to a stop behind a mausoleum some yards away and behind them again.  The power was intoxicating.  He could almost forget his rage and despair in the sheer pleasure of being able to run faster, hit harder, do the unexpected.  He had lived his life as a medium-sized mer of no unusual strength, dependent for his survival on speed and discipline and always thinking ahead.  Vampires had it so easy.  

 

And that was why he had been able to kill them, he reminded himself.  It made you stupid if you let it.  He didn't have to risk a glance around the mausoleum; he could hear the four survivors splitting into two pairs this time, so that none was completely isolated.  Saraven grinned ferally to himself until he realized what he was doing.

 

Imagine having to take advice from Zudarra, who was less than a third his age and as subtle as a short stack of bricks.  Imagine being so stupid that she had to tell him not to let the power go to his head, and damnation, imagine her being right.  He squinted in revulsion at himself.  

 

_ One thing at a time.  _  He hooked an arm around a decoration on the edge of the mausoleum's roof, hauled himself up onto the sloping surface, and lay there to wait for the next two.  At this angle he might be able to kill one before the other even saw him, feed on the survivor before the others pinpointed his location.

 

“The prey moves too quickly to be mortal,” one dremora said to the other in their own language.  He held his mace at the ready, slowly stalking through the graves and looking each way as he passed every row with a caution uncharacteristic of his race.

 

“Mortal or not, it will break as they do,” the other growled.  A gray shape caught his eye, and he pointed to the  mausoleum roof with his sword.  “There!”

 

Saraven was on the opposite slope from them.  He didn't understand how they'd seen him until he realized one foot was sticking up over the edge of the roof's peak.  Stupid, stupid, he should know better than this!  Saraven swore under his breath as he rolled off and fell to the ground, landing easily on his feet.  A dremora was already coming around the corner of the building sword-first, forcing him to flatten himself against the door to avoid being impaled, and then he heard the other one coming up from behind him, around the other side of the building.  He dropped to one knee in time for the spiked mace to splinter the wooden door above his head, and then he raised his arm barely in time to prevent himself being decapitated.  The blade gouged into the chainmail links over his arm.  It bruised him, smashing metal into muscle, a sharp reminder that his flesh was still as fragile as it had ever been.  

 

He dove and rolled forward as the second dremora was freeing the mace from the broken door.  He twisted around to stab upward at the seam of the blade-wielder's cuirass, and that was a stroke that failed half the time, and he knew it; but he was so much stronger than he had been that the glancing blow damaged one of the catches.  The cuirass did not come off, but its side seam was now gaping open.  Saraven had time to realize that before he had to roll away again, dodging another blow aimed at his neck.

 

The noise had attracted the attention of the remaining two.  From the corner of his eye he could see them running toward him. He dared not let himself be surrounded.  Saraven got to his feet, parrying another bruising blow with his forearm, and spun away from the one with the mace to sprint straight at the mausoleum.  He was moving so fast that he had only to jump a little and he was running up and along the surface of the building, and then he flipped forward off past the mace-wielder and cut at his neck as he flew past.  Blood fountained from the dremora's throat and he was running, already yards away when the irresistible smell of it dragged him to a halt.

 

_ No.  No.  No _ .  Saraven was turning back toward the dremora against his will, lips peeled back from his fangs.  There were three left, the one with the sword and two others with war axes, and he could not fight all three of them face to face.  He had to get away.  He couldn't get away.  He slapped the palm of his left hand against the jagged blade of his sword, and the pain and the bitter stink of his own blood snapped him out of it.  He turned and ran.  

 

There was a square to the East surrounded by the smoking remains of buildings, arranged around the charred skeleton of a tree still standing in a round little patch of dead grass that had once been a landscaping feature.  As he skidded around the corner of what had once been a book store – a small storm of pages blew above the collapsed stones as he passed – he recognized the tattered crimson banner ahead of him.  Fighters Guild.  Now that he was looking for it, the broken glass window on the building next to that was probably the stylized eye of the Mages Guild.  Both buildings were half-collapsed, formerly multi-story, now thrusting jagged and burnt beams toward the gray sky.  The body of a woman in a blue robe was draped over the front stoop of the Mages Guild, eyes completely gone, face sunken and shriveled.  A clannfear lay half-across the body.  Other dead daedra littered the square, mingled with bodies in armor.  He recognized the insignia of the Blackwood Company on some, but it looked like some of the mercenaries had survived.  At least they hadn't all died here.  

 

He could not tell how many of his guildmates lay among the fallen, and some of the bodies were dismembered, rotten, or otherwise unrecognizable, but with a pang he recognized Glarius Vellen, an Imperial he had known off and on for some years.  He had been torn nearly in half, his decaying face fixed in a terrible grimace above his trailing intestines.  He had died with a mace in his hand, as a Fighter should.  The shriveled claw was still clenched around the hilt.

 

* * *

 

 

Zudarra took off for the river, hanging back just enough for the dremora to believe they might catch her.  She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw an Argonian emerge from the tavern window and four dremora on her tail.  The bulk of them had followed Saraven, for whatever reason.   _ Not good. _  Once on the bridge she slowed and spun, axe smashing through the unprotected face of the dremora directly behind her.  She waited for the plodding dremora to catch up, two side by side with the last behind them, trying to decide if she should risk taking two at once without her armor.  

 

The choice was made for her.  One of the dremora screamed as a crimson beam of magicka struck his body.  He stumbled forward, still intent on charging her with his companion, but the deadly thread did not break contact and he sagged to his knees just as the other reached Zudarra.  She easily blocked the slow sweeping hammer and jumped back to steal a glance at the water, where the magical attack had come from.  Ripples drew her attention to a grey-green crocodilian shape in the water and then it was gone, dipping below the surface, and she was blocking another slow swing and shoving the dremora back with the haft of her axe.  He staggered back and Zudarra kicked at his knee, knocking him off balance and onto his back just as the last dremora reached her.

 

This one charged with his sword but Zudarra spun aside and around, raising her axe, his blade scraping her arm as he barreled past.  His back was to her now and Zudarra slammed down her axe, burying the blade in the back of his skull with a furious roar.  She heard the clanking of the dremora behind her rising and turned to face him, grinning.  This one would be food.  She kicked him in the chest to send him down again, shifted her axe in her hands and brought down the hilt on his skull, and descended to feed.

 

Zudarra's ear twitched to a sloshing sound behind her, followed by footsteps on the bridge.  She didn't care.  The corpse was drained before she released it, and Zudarra turned on her heels, still crouching, to see the gray-green Argonian that had helped her standing several feet away, eyeing her wearily.  His torso was naked, but he carried a shoulder bag and the hilt of a dagger protruded from the waistband of his pants.  Behind him was a smaller female in wet leather armor, her scales a vibrant, glittering emerald.  She had drawn her shortsword as they approached, but stopped when he did.

 

“A vampire,” the male observed evenly.  Zudarra wiped blood from her chin with the back of her hand and stood.

 

“I don't have time to talk.  I need to find my.. ally,” she said.  “If that's your companion in the tavern back there, they may need help.”

 

“Wait!” the female said as Zudarra turned away.  “I'll help you.  Jarwaasi, check on the others.”  The male nodded, and both jogged toward her.  

 

“You can't keep up with me and I'm in a hurry,” Zudarra said and zipped away before she could hear a reply.  As she passed the blazing tavern she saw two more Argonians lying on the yard outside.  A third was dragging them away from fire, which was roaring in the upper level now – maybe they hurt themselves jumping, maybe they were weak from smoke inhalation.  She didn't stop to check, but ran past them in a blur for where she thought Saraven had gone: the church.

 

She found fresh corpses in the graveyard.  One smelled of Saraven; he had briefly fed.  She followed his changed scent back into town.  He had bled very slightly.  The remaining dremora had followed, but they seemed to have lost him when he turned down a side street.  Zudarra followed his trail rather than theirs.

 

Finally she saw him, standing in a square surrounded by ruined buildings and corpses.  She slowed to a halt beside him, following his gaze to the mangled corpse of an Imperial laying near the rubble that had been the Fighters Guild.

 

“Are you okay?” she asked, gently.

 

_ Voice.  Zudarra. _  He looked at her – he had not heard her coming, and that was a serious matter, that was a lethal mistake.  She had bloodied her weapon, and she had drunk; he had only a merish sense of smell when it came to anything but blood, but blood he could scent, and she had fed from a dremora.   _ Strength.  _  He pushed away that confusing urge toward subservience, knowing it was not out of his own mind.  Before she had changed him he had felt toward her almost paternally, a species of affectionate exasperation.

 

He registered after a moment what she had asked.  He shook his head, opening and closing his bleeding left hand as he spared the pittance of magicka to heal himself.  He hated to do it.  He needed the pain.  “He died fighting,” he said.  “There are three of them left.  They're not far behind.”

 

Zudarra eyed the wound on his palm as he healed it, realizing it had to be self-inflicted.  He wouldn't have blocked with his bare hand.  She frowned and shifted uncomfortably.

 

“I think you lost them.  They may have circled back to the tavern.  There's a group of Argonians there now.  Might need a healer,” she said, turning to head back that way.  They had to keep moving.  Saraven needed the distraction.

 

Saraven went after her silently.  His feet wanted to follow even if he had wished otherwise.  They were halfway back to the church when Zudarra slowed, holding up a hand to Saraven.  She heard the clank of daedric boots around the corner, fast approaching.

 

“They're near,” she whispered, forgetting his vampiric senses most likely told him that already.

 

Saraven was aware of hearts beating and he flicked the blade to clean it of blood as he side-stepped away from her.  One came around the corner slightly ahead of the others, and he waited, bouncing on his toes, until he saw them all.  The one in front, the one with the sword, saw him then and snarled as he charged, his ragged black hair flying out behind him.  

 

“BREAK!”

 

Saraven slid forward, kicking at one of his ankles, then rolled away and darted behind the other two without stopping to see if his attack had been successful; the sword whistled over his head without coming close to hitting him.

 

The dremora stumbled back and Zudarra slammed into him with her shoulder, knocking him down.  She bashed his gauntlets with her axe to knock the weapon out of his hands, following the swing over her head and back down at his.  The dremora had time to throw his weight to the side in a roll just before her axe slammed down and rebounded from the cobblestone street, sparks flying.  The dremora had rolled onto his elbows and kicked back at her, catching her unarmored leg with his hard boot.  

 

She staggered back, fighting to catch her balance as the dremora scrambled up.  

 

The two dremora with war axes whirled and ran for the Dunmer in arcs, closing in on either side of him, weapons drawn back and ready to strike at his unprotected head.

 

He backed up for a half-second, running over maneuvers in his head, resisting the urge to just lunge at the nearest with his teeth.   _ No magicka.  People need healing.  _  He took two quick steps toward the one on his right, ducked under the swing of the axe – it blew his stubble of hair to one side with the wind of its passage – and slashed at the dremora's throat with the sword.  The daedra ducked his head enough to deflect the blade from one short horn, though the impact was jarring, throwing bone fragments into the air.  The other one hissed at his fellow in the Kyntongue, trying to get around him to get at Saraven, but the second one was staggering, shaking his head as he flailed blindly with the axe.  The Dunmer ran the sword blade economically into and out of his throat on the right side, like a seamstress sewing.  

 

Blood jetted out into the air, its scent intoxicating.  Saraven froze as the body fell, fighting with himself, fangs bared as he stared wide-eyed at the dying daedra.  The second one strode forward, grinning triumphantly as he raised the axe.

 

The dremora before Zudarra wouldn't have time to retrieve his weapon if she acted now.  But beyond him Saraven was standing still, staring stupidly at the bleeding creature on the ground.  The blood in the air gripped her senses, worked Zudarra into her usual frenzy, but her recent feeding and a year of experience allowed her to shelve her ever-persistent need.

 

“Saraven!” she shouted, lunging past her dremora with axe raised.  The other daedra turned to her a fraction of a second too late and her axe smashed into his face, crushing eye and socket beneath the heavy blade.  He dropped like a puppet with strings snipped, yanking Zudarra down with him, axe still wedged in his shattered skull.

 

Saraven jerked his head up at the voice just in time to be splattered with the blood of the creature that had been about to slaughter him.  The first dremora's sword was in his hands now and he sprinted the few short steps for them, blade angled to slice through Zudarra's back.  Saraven sped past Zudarra in a near-invisible blur, dropped his shoulder, and ploughed into the other dremora going as fast as he could travel.  It felt like running into a building, but he felt something give and give again.  He was smaller, and his armor was lighter, but he was traveling at an uncanny speed; the creature grunted as one heel dug into the ground, sliding backward over the dirt.  He sought purchase with the other, his momentum lost, and then Saraven whirled away as he stabbed him in the throat.  This time he could not even restrain himself to the point of standing and staring.  He caught at the falling body and fastened his mouth over the wound, drinking greedily.

 

Zudarra heard a bang and a grunt behind her, and when she yanked free her axe and turned Saraven was feeding yet again.  She watched him with a pang of jealousy and briefly considered shoving him aside, but it wasn’t so hard to resist the temptation.  She had fed better that day than probably any other day in her life; might not feel hunger if not for the blood saturating the air.  She wiped her axe on the grass nearby and slung it onto her back, and searched the dead dremora for anything useful while she waited, rather than watch him.  They had nothing worth taking.

 

_ I wish I had known what hunger I would face, _ she thought bitterly as the daedra became a desiccated shell, her ears sagging and tail hanging limp.   _ I might not have known what voracious need I would suffer, but I knew when I turned you. _

 

He was feeding.  Pleasure subsumed him for what seemed hours but was in fact seconds.  He realized it as he let the body go and watched it drop, but he did not remember how he had begun.  Saraven wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring blankly down at the new corpse.  He had dropped his sword.  He had not dropped his sword carelessly since he was in his thirties.  He caught it up now to clean it, glancing at Zudarra.  She looked half-wilted as she watched him.  

 

_ My kill.  Strength.  Weakness?  _  He was calculating how much stronger she was and whether he could get a hit in before the first blow knocked him over before he realized what he was doing.  He jerked his head away, face convulsed with horror for a second.  He would much rather die than hurt Zudarra.  This was a choice he had already made without hesitation.  He sheathed his sword as he stood up and went over to stand beside her, to look up at her face.  She was the same Cathay-raht he had met on the road to Kvatch, the same one he had fought beside for two weeks now.  She had not changed.

 

“I don't mind you pushing me off if you're hungry, you know,” he said quietly.  “I can't – I can't stop it.  I hate that, but it is the truth.”

 

“I fed on two dremora this morning and another just now,” she said.  She’d been aware of him staring at her with an odd expression, no doubt wrestling the demon she had unleashed in him.  “I don't need more.  You don't either.  You'll learn to control it.  I... I promise it gets easier.”  He was looking at her.  Zudarra glanced quickly over his face, but she couldn't meet his eyes.  She turned away, waving a hand as if to dispel the awkwardness between them, and dropped into a quick trot back toward the burning tavern.  “Come on.”

 

“Thank you,” he said quietly.  He fell in beside her again.  He now understood more clearly than ever what torture being near him must have been for her.  It was not shocking that she had fed on him when he was unconscious.  It was shocking that she had let him live.

 

They found the five Argonians across the street from the blaze, including the ones Zudarra had met on the bridge.  One that Zudarra had seen lying on the ground was sitting upright now, leaning back on his palms, panting in shallow breaths with the others clustered around him.  Zudarra could smell pain and fear over the smoke as they approached, dropping to a mortal speed.

 

At least the Argonians were easy enough for Saraven to resist, for now.  Their hearts were quiet and their blood was slow and cool compared to the daedra.  He realized it with relief.  _  I might still be able to save someone else's spouse.  Someone else's child. _ That thought had kept him going when he was in complete exhaustion and despair, after Zudarra had fed on him the first time.  It would have to sustain him now.

 

“I can heal,” he said as he moved forward, slowly, showing his empty hands.

 

The crowd parted around the injured man and the mage, Jarwaasi, looked carefully from Zudarra to Saraven, then nodded.

 

“I used the last of my magicka helping your friend, and my potions were used up days ago.  He thinks his ankle broke when he jumped from the window,” Jarwaasi said.

 

“Did these two really kill all those dremora?” A yellow and red-scaled woman asked, the one Zudarra had seen dragging the others.  She seemed light and nimble, a steel bow slung over her back.  She was holding a quiver in her hands, apparently having been salvaging what arrows she could from the ground.

 

“It would seem so,” the emerald Argonian in leathers responded, looking at Zudarra with what she supposed was a smile.  None of them appeared to be afraid of her.  _  The enemy of my enemy is my friend, _ she thought.

 

Saraven sank to one knee beside the injured Argonian.  He could hear the man's fast, irregular heartbeat – pain, alarm – as he held out a hand, but he was in control.  He released power and watched it spiral around the Argonian's body.  There were a couple of soft click-click noises as bones in his ankle realigned and healed, the swelling smoothing out.

 

“Don't worry,” he said as he stood up.  “Daedric blood is a lot more potent than ours – than yours.  You're safe.”

 

Zudarra frowned.  She hated to hear him speak as if they were wild animals to be feared.  If Saraven would move at a normal speed, he'd probably pass for a regular mortal.  It was not so hard for a Dunmer.  But the world was ending around them.  Maybe it didn't matter if anyone knew.  

 

The Argonian rotated his foot to test it and one of the others held out a hand to help haul him to his feet.

 

“Thank you, friend.  After the things I've seen, a vampire is the least of my worries,” he said.  “We were scouring the city for potions or anything useful when that group ambushed us.  We've been holding the river for days, picking daedra off when we can, but our supplies are exhausted.”

 

“The portal to the Deadlands is closed and the city looks abandoned, from what we saw,” Zudarra said.  She felt no need to inform them that she and Saraven has closed it.  She didn't want praise.  She didn't want to think about the tower and its dungeon.

 

“If that's true, we should start the hunt for survivors,” Jarwaasi said.  

 

The emerald Argonian eyed Zudarra up and down.

 

“What happened to your armor?” she asked.

 

“We were captured by dremora but escaped.  It was taken and I never got it back.”  

 

“This is going to sound awful, but I saw an Orc about your size get taken down by a pack of clannfear when all this started.  I can take you to his body, if you want his armor.  Looked like adamantium.  No one's going to judge you for robbing a corpse under these circumstances.”

 

“I know the castle smith is still alive,” one of the others added.

 

Zudarra readily assented to finding the armor.  The Argonians divided themselves up, one of them for the river to collect the rest of their group and then Castle Leyawiin to inform the people there of the gate's closing and the others to begin the hunt for any survivors still trapped in the city.  The emerald Argonian introduced herself as Daydreams-Under-Shade, and lead Zudarra and Saraven to a street not very far away.  She kept a watchful eye on the vampires with her hand on the sheathed hilt of her sword, never walking ahead of them, clearly out of pragmatism rather than fear.  Saraven did not blame her.  He scarcely trusted himself.  He could not rationally urge that proceeding on others.  

 

The Orc was lying outside a collapsed forge near other mortal corpses.  His armor was finer than anything Zudarra would have been able to afford while supporting her mother, gleaming adamantium with golden filigree vines on the rounded pauldrons and on the gauntlets.  The thighs were protected by faulds and a chainmail skirt with greaves on the lower leg.  The pointy metal shoes would not fit her paws, so Zudarra left them.  He wore an open-faced helm, and his face had been torn away by the jaws of clannfear and now the rest of the Orc's decomposing body was slowly trickling through the gaps of the armor.  Zudarra inwardly groaned at the prospect of touching it, but it had to be done.

 

They dragged together several bodies afterward, including his, and burned them in the nearest square before Daydreams and Saraven helped her to carry the slime-dripping pieces back to the castle, where they passed hoards of weary citizens camped out in the front courtyard and inside the halls.  

 

Saraven carried on with the necessary work with alacrity, feeling a deep sense of relief.  The adamantium armor was a bright spot; clad in that heavy, bright metal Zudarra would be a magnificent juggernaut, splendid and unstoppable.  He smiled occasionally as they hauled it back to the castle.

 

He caught a glimpse of himself in the water as they crossed the thin bridge of land to the castle gates.  Well-fed, he was no longer pale.  His face looked younger than it ought, still weary but smoother and less lined.  Vampirism did not completely de-age a person, but it did roll back some of the ravages of time, even as it had smoothed away the clicks and aches in his joints.  It seemed like yet another insult piled on top of his new need for Zudarra's help and advice.  At least his scars were still there.  Nothing would take those away.

 

He had not seen things that weren't there since he was changed, he realized as they went.  Whatever had been done to his mind, there was no more room for the confusion of intrusive memories.  Instead he had the constant push-pull of the alternate desire to follow or attack Zudarra, the insidious background of roiling bloodlust tweaked this way and that by every person they met.  He felt that he scarcely knew himself.  It was hard to escape the creeping feeling that the mer he had been was truly dead.

 

The castle smith was a heavy-set Nord called Frida, her face and arms flecked with white battle scars and burn marks, shining blue eyes full of light and good humor in spite of the circumstances.  She took Zudarra's measurements and informed them that the armor would be cleaned and fitted by tomorrow – anything for a hero who had helped defend the city – and gave Saraven a layered cotton shirt to go on under his mail.  It had been taken from another corpse and laundered enough to get rid of the smell.  It was stained and there was a hole in the right side that had been crudely stitched up.  

 

He accepted it with polite thanks and hid his reluctance.  He would have to find another way to distract himself.  As they walked he worked on prying a steel link loose from the sleeve of his mail shirt.  It should just about fit around his smallest finger.  Zudarra watched him fiddling with his mail from the corner of her eye, unable to imagine what in the world he was doing and ultimately deciding it wasn't her business to care.

 

Outside in the hall of Castle Leyawiin, Daydreams-Under-Shade bowed deeply to both of them.

 

“I have to be getting back to help the others, now.  Our allies owe their lives to the two of you, and I thank you.  If you ever need anything of me, I'd have said inquire for me at the Fighter's Guild, but it's been destroyed along with my house.  I suppose I'll be around the castle for a while, when I'm not out there assisting with cleanup.”  She looked from one to the other.  “Please let me know if I can do anything for either of you.”

 

Saraven bowed deeply to the Argonian in return, tapping his fist to his chest in the Guild salute.  

 

“Thank you,” he said quietly.  “May you live to see better days than these.”

 

He felt no need for sleep, he realized.  He turned to look at Zudarra again when the Argonian had departed.  That mortal need had left him with all of the others.  

 

“I need to ask you something,” he said.

 

She turned to Saraven with her usual mask, secretly wishing the Argonian would come back and not leave her alone with him.

 

“Yes?” she answered evenly. 

 

“D'you feel like the same person?” he asked.  “As before you changed?”  He flicked the link free of his sleeve and began absently working it with his left hand, prying the links apart slightly to expose an unsmoothed end where it had been cut originally.

 

Zudarra's gaze shifted from his face to his hand, watching the shifting of the bones under the skin as his fingers worked the link while she considered the question.

 

In those first days, the need had been all-consuming, and then came the fear of losing herself to it.  During the day she threw herself into her training outside the city, away from the army of pounding hearts within those white stone walls, drunk with the ecstasy of her newfound power.  At night an animalistic fervor gripped her and she drained beggars to dead husks.  It was a week before her first victim survived, and a month before she returned to the arena, finally confident that she could restrain her movements well enough to pass as a mortal and prevent herself from feeding on a fallen opponent.  All the while, only one thought sustained her.

 

_ It's the only way.  I have to be this.  I have to do this.  I couldn't have gone another day in that fragile, decaying body!  _  Her mantra allowed her to drown out the disgust toward her cold corpse of a body, toward the mindless actions of a raging beast.  When the silence in her breast disturbed her, she need only listen to the beating of another to remind herself how easily that heart could stop and its owner would be dead and gone forever while she would live on.  

 

Then her wins started to rack up, the gold was rolling in, and the hunger was easier to weather.  Vandalion's arrival made it even easier.  Zudarra forgot the horror of those first days as her fame and self-control grew.  She was different, yes; but she was  _ better. _

 

“I don't know,” she said slowly, her eyes returning to his to search for any clue as to what he might be thinking.  “My personality hasn't changed, if that's what you mean.  I guess the answer is no.  But it took a while to adjust to my new nature,” she added quickly. 

 

“Never been ruled by my appetites,” Saraven said.  His face was tight-lipped, tight-jawed, much as she had always seen him; but his eyes were wider, fighting to contain an excess of emotions that had been strange to him a week ago.  He worked the link around into a tight C shape, then slid it onto the  smallest finger on his left hand, the exposed rough ends turned inward toward his palm.  “Never been without control.”  It was what had always separated him from the ones he hunted.  “I don't know myself.  How long until you could feed without killing?”

 

Zudarra's hands clenched beside her.  She didn't want to answer that.  She didn't want to throw him into deeper despair.

 

_ Why do you care so damn much? _ she asked herself.  Any answer she might have found within herself was shrouded in the swirling mists of confusion.  Zudarra suddenly felt so very lost and alone, unsure of herself in a way she'd never been before.  She had to take responsibility for what she had made of Saraven, but didn't know where to begin.  She didn't want to care.

 

“About a week,” she said stiffly, finally admitting to him that she had been the mindless killer he accused her of being.

 

Saraven shut his eyes, exhaling through his nostrils.  It had been less than two days.  A week of this sounded eternal.  It took him several seconds of processing through the abject, hopeless despair he felt before it occurred to him to think about how she had said it.

 

The Dunmer opened his eyes and looked up again at her, forcing his shoulders straight.  She had been different since he woke up in the cell.  He had always thought of her as arrogant, very young, not really ready to acknowledge responsibility for herself and one thrall at a time, let alone anyone else.  And here she was with a new fledgling raging and whinging and stealing her kills.  

 

Both of them had it in their nature to tell, not ask.  That, at least, had not changed.  He was bleakly amused by that, and that at least lightened his mood.

 

“Thank you for your honesty,” he said.  “All right.  If we leave here tomorrow we can be in Bravil in a couple of days.  Another gate, I hope to gods, another batch of dremora.  Galmir has always been yours.  I won't touch him.  When we've survived Bravil I should be through the worst of it and I can find my own thrall.”

 

He hated that thought, he quailed at it.  But just because having a living food source to travel with him was the most logical and efficient way did not mean he had to treat them as Zudarra did.  Here at the end of all things it would not be hard to find a lost soul who, that devil's bargain explained, would say yes anyway.  That was important.  They had to know what they were agreeing to before the first drink, before they fell into that fog and never came out.

 

Zudarra stared at him in shock at the mention of a thrall.

 

“You're really going to – never mind.”  She scowled at herself and started down the hall.  What else was he supposed to do?  They had to feed, and Galmir could barely keep up with one vampire let alone two.  Saraven seemed to be taking this awfully well, considering.  It brought her no relief.

 

She could hear the echo of voices further down in the main hall of the castle.  She stopped and turned to him again.  This was not a conversation to let others overhear.

 

“There won't be any dremora available for several days, then.  I.. I think you should look for a thrall now.  You don't have much time left before the thirst is back in full force, and then you'll be stupid and wild.”  The words were so hard to say.  Zudarra felt she was prying them out of her mouth with pliers.  “No offense, but I'm stronger than you.  I won't let you kill anyone.  I'll pull you off.” 

 

His mouth folded down grimly, but he nodded.  At her last statement he could have kissed her.  She understood.  The look he gave her was deeply relieved.  “Whatever results in the least harm to the greatest number of people.  How did you learn the mind control?  I don't want them to suffer.”

 

She shrugged, feeling a bit better that he was not disgusted by her suggestion.

 

“I don't know.  It's.. an instinct, I guess.  I wanted them to be calm, so they were.  Dremora are different.  You can't feel anything from them but rage and they don't react to your thoughts.  With a mortal, you'll notice their thoughts and feelings when you feed, and you can substitute theirs with whatever you want.  I couldn't do this right away – too focused on my thirst to notice or care.  But I learned pretty fast.  I guess none of that really answers the question, does it?”

 

“It does answer the question,” he said.  “I'll be back before your armor is done.”  

 

“All right,” she said slowly.  It was obvious by his choice of words that Saraven meant to go thrall-hunting alone.   _ Fat chance of that happening _ , she thought, flicking her tail irritably.  But she said, “I'd better tell Galmir what's going on; I’ll meet you here later.”

 

He turned to continue down the hall, toward the doorway that opened into the main hall and thence the outside.  The great room towered up into the darkness of the ceiling, upheld by high pillars.  It was busy now, occupied by rows of small tents holding refugees from the rest of the city.  They were noisy, some weeping, some arguing, some soothing weeping children.  The thunder of their hearts was deafening.  Saraven was relieved to find that the children tempted him vastly less than their parents – there was so much less blood in their bodies that they barely registered.  

 

That confirmed what he knew, if he was willing to remember the most horrible of his experiences.  Children almost always died with their parents, because they had been there rather than because they were sought on their own account.  Even Dorova had probably died because the vampire came in after Velaru.  He was able to think of that now without the images of their bodies flashing in front of his eyes, a strange relief in this new torment.  

 

He held himself to a normal walking speed as he went, not wishing to attract unnecessary attention.  These were people who had families, friends, relationships with the clustered survivors around them.  Those with no reason to live would be out in the city, indifferent to their own fate.  The dremora could not have found every soul huddled hopelessly in a ruined house, in a basement, in an outbuilding; but he could.  No beating heart would elude him.

 

He walked out across the land bridge unchallenged, nodding to a tired guard wearing the town's heraldic symbol, a rampant horse on a field vert.  The guard nodded back and returned to scanning the open area in front of the castle for foes or refugees who might be injured or in need of help.

 

Saraven walked for some minutes, pausing occasionally to listen when he thought he heard anything that might be a dim and distant pulse.  Once he passed what he was sure was an Argonian swimming, faint beat smothered by the water as the ripples glided past on the surface, but they kept on without stopping.

 

Eventually he found himself in the ruined square again, among the remains of the Guilds.  He went to set fire to the body of Glarius Vellen and waited there to watch it burn, standing beside it to look into the flames.  It stank, but not worse than it had unburnt and almost a week rotten.  There were many others around him, but he had only tonight for his search, and he could not spend it laying all of them to rest in the fire.

 

A vampire would go up like a puddle of hard liquor in a flame as hot as that, he thought to himself.  It would be incredibly painful but very brief.

 

_ The least harm to the greatest number.  There may be other gates. _

 

Someone was approaching.  He heard a faint, distant pulse before anything else.  He looked around slowly.

 

“Come on out,” he said.  “If you're not a daedra, I won't hurt you.”

 

“I'm not a daedra,” said a tired voice.  A woman limped out of the alley between the Fighters Guild and the Blackwood Company.  She was a tall, muscular Nord, brown hair tied loosely back at the nape of her neck, eyes pale blue.  Part of a suit of iron armor was buckled on over her bloody, stained padding – one pauldron, the opposite vambrace and gauntlet, one poleyn, two boots.  Her cuirass was completely gone.  She had no weapons that he could see.  She stopped to look at him indifferently, eyes dull, and then turned to fall heavily to one knee beside the fire, looking down at the body of Glarius.

 

“Did you know him?” her voice was rough and her eyes were red.  She was not weeping now.  She had run out of tears.  He had seen the look before.

 

“A little,” Saraven said.  “We cleared a couple of caves of necromancers together about two years back.  He was a brave man.  I'm Saraven Gol.”

 

“Brithe Aglasdottir,” she said.  “Yes.  The best there was.  Thank you for giving him a pyre.  My strength is gone.  I would have watched by him, but that is all that I would be able to do.”  She had a thick accent, like many Nords born in Skyrim.

 

“You ought to come with me to the castle,” he said.  “Get healed up.  Regain your strength.”

 

She shook her head.  “Glarius is dead,” she said.  “Haraven is dead.  Gelb gro-Vadak is dead.  They're all dead.  Some escaped, I suppose, but not the ones that I knew.”

 

“I'm sorry,” Saraven said.

 

Brithe shook her head again.  “Glarius and I were going to buy a house here in town,” she said softly.  “It's a pile of rocks now.  Not even that is left.”

 

Saraven nodded silently.  He loathed himself for what he was about to do. _  The least harm. _

 

“I can take the pain away,” he said.  “At first just for a little while, and then more and more over time.  You will live, and you won't care.”

 

“What are you talking of, Dunmer?” she looked up at him dully.

 

Saraven pulled his lips back from his teeth for a moment, showing his sharp fangs.  She was not shocked.  She was beyond that sort of emotion.

 

“That seems like it would just hurt more,” she said.

 

He shook his head.  “Try it once.  It won't.”

 

The Nord laughed once, looking at the burning body of her lover.  “All right, do it.  I do not care.”

 

Saraven moved to kneel beside her, reaching out a hand to her shoulder as he let the power go.  Blue magicka spiraled up around her, and he heard a couple of soft clicks that were probably from broken ribs and a small fracture in her lower leg.  Iron armor would hold a broken calf together for a long time.  She sighed, heaving her one pauldron up and down.  She felt so warm under his fingers, flesh insulated from his touch only by cloth, not by dremora armor; he felt all the fragility and strength of her, paradoxical, weak and strong.

 

And he felt the pain, he realized suddenly.  He was aware of the dull, constant agony that she felt, the thing that blotted out everything else.  He was aware of the pictures playing over and over through her mind in a way that was achingly familiar to him.

 

_ Everything is all right.  Calm.  Forget.  See only me. _  He didn't know if there was some special procedure, so he just thought that at her a few times, listening to the feedback.  Somewhat to his surprise it actually started to work.  He felt her fall into the rhythm of his thoughts, the tortuous images gently fading into a tranquil silence.  She was ready for the pain to stop.  

 

_ Feel no pain. _  He gathered her in against his chest, nudging her head to one side as he sank his fangs into her throat.  She did not resist him.  And then he began to feed, hot blood over his tongue, pleasure less intense than he had known from dremora, but real, vivid.  He fed that back to her and felt as much as heard her moan, arms suddenly tight around his body.  She had been strong.  She would be again, if he was careful.  It was uniquely pleasurable to feed on someone who enjoyed it with him, who did not struggle and fight him every second.  He drank more slowly than he ever had before, but he was not sure how to stop even as Brithe's head sank forward onto his shoulder and her arms started to weaken and then grow limp.

 

"Yes," she whispered in his ear.  "Let it end."

 


	16. Chapter 16

Zudarra peered around a mountain of rubble that had once been the Blackwood Company Hall to watch the solitary figure in the square.  She had waited in the castle, counting out the minutes, and when enough time had passed Zudarra followed his scent out through the main gate and into the empty streets of Leyawiin.

 

Saraven had returned to that same body – Zudarra forgot if he had mentioned a name – to offer him a funeral pyre.  Her irritated frown at having to play babysitter softened when the body went up in flames.  Saraven may have felt that he was a changed mer, but Zudarra knew that he was not.  He would never stop being decent, just as vampirism had not stopped her being selfish and cold.  She brought a hand up to rest on the burnt timber she was leaning against, tail curling around her ankle, and felt a pang of something foreign in her breast.

 

A woman emerged, and Zudarra tensed, waiting.  She was too far away to hear their conversation.  But the moment Saraven touched her, the air where Zudarra had stood shimmered and the Khajiit blinked out of existence.  He would probably not notice her soft pads flying across stone in his haze of pleasure.  She came to rest beside him, with no heartbeat or breath to alert either of them that she was there.

 

She almost thought Saraven would be different – he handled the woman so gently.  Zudarra had fallen upon her first mortal prey like a ravenous wolf while Saraven held his like a lover.  Then the Nord sagged against him and Zudarra grabbed his forehead with one hand and his victim's shoulder with the other to yank them apart, growling.  Her spell dissipated when she touched them and the air rippled, Khajiit exploding into view, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood on the air.

 

 _Mine!_ a voice inside her roared, and her lips curled back over her fangs in an automatic hiss before the fog of passion cleared and Zudarra grabbed hold of herself.  She wanted to _stop_ him, not steal his prey.

 

* * *

 

Saraven heard nothing at all of her approach.  He was aware only of Brithe, her heart, her blood, her softly fading voice in his head – joy, relief.  The idea that he would stop had faded seconds ago and he did not even remember that he had ever had it.  Then a hand clamped around his forehead and he was yanked backward, landing on his back and catching himself on his elbows as Brithe toppled bonelessly to the ground.  The mist of ecstasy cleared slowly and reluctantly, and he looked up, snarling, into Zudarra's hissing muzzle.  

 

Fangs, crimson eyes.  Rippling muscle.  The scent of dremora blood.   _Strength._  He looked away immediately, automatically as he clamped his mouth shut.  A second after that he realized what he had been about to do.

 

“Oh, gods.  I would've killed her.”  He held out a hand toward the fallen Nord as he sat up, releasing magicka again.  The punctures on her throat closed as though they had never been.  He scrambled up to his knees, curling his left little finger over to dig the rough ends of the chain link into his palm.  The pain centered him, clearing his head.  He looked from Brithe to Zudarra and back.  The woman breathed evenly as she lay on her side, strong heart soldiering on, though her skin was pale and the flutter of her pulse was weak.  Her face was calm, tranquil, and he realized she was younger than he had at first thought.

 

Wait, where had Zudarra even come from?  He was suffused with shame as he realized what the truth must be.

 

“You followed me,” he said quietly, rising to one knee.  “You knew.”

 

“You were supposed to _find_ a thrall, not feed on her immediately,” Zudarra snapped.

 

To see her hostile and agitated did not frighten Saraven.  She had often been thus.  But she was right, and his face fell as shame twisted like a knife in his gut.  He should not have fed at all, did not even need it.  The pain and the shame on Saraven's face lanced her own heart and Zudarra realized she was towering over him with with her feet braced apart and arms bent stiffly at her sides, wicked black claws fully outstretched.  They retracted slowly as she relaxed, the raised ruff of her neck sinking along with them.

 

“Of course I knew,” she said, more gently this time, trying hard to mask her agitation.  It wasn't even Saraven she was mad at.  It was the blood in the air, it was her own momentary loss of control in the face of an instinctive drive to chase him away and drain the prey that ought to be hers. “It's not your fault.  It's the blood of dremora clouding your mind.  I know you can't appreciate it, having known nothing else, but their blood drives you wild.”

 

It was an obvious half-truth.  Even if he hadn't fed on the daedra, he most certainly still would have tried to kill his first mortal.  They both knew it, but there was no reason to make him feel worse.

 

She bent to gather the unconscious woman into her arms.  It wasn't that she didn't trust Saraven to carry her; trust was irrelevant among vampires.  This was simply the way it had to be right now.

 

He stood up slowly as she picked up his – no – as she lifted Brithe.  The next words out of Zudarra's mouth were lies, but that was according to pattern.  She usually did lie when she was upset.  The new and different thing was that she seemed to be trying to make him feel better.

 

 _I am a burden to her as she was to me._  Her thirst, her need, had been the nexus of his worries whenever they were outside of a gate and sometimes inside it, the need to keep her fed so that others would be safe.  Now he had to trust her to be in control for both of them, and that was a heavy load to shoulder.

 

But he did trust her.  As he walked quietly beside her back toward the castle, looking at the ground, he was absolutely certain that she would not harm the unconscious woman.  

 

And if she did, if she showed that weakness, he would slit her throat with his blade in an instant and then Galmir would be his as well.  He could have them both in his arms at the same time, feed from one throat and then the other in turn - _Good GODS, no._ He was horrified at himself.  It kept him silent as they went over the land bridge into the castle again.

 

A guard came forward to inquire if they were in need of a healer when they saw the limp Nord in Zudarra's arms.  “No,” she said, “we've healed her already and now she needs rest and food.”  They were directed to a makeshift infirmary, where those with more serious injuries were recovering.  It had been one room of the guard's barracks, a row of beds in a spartan stone room with storage chests at the foot of each.  It was quiet inside; the few occupants were sleeping soundly.  An Imperial woman in healer's robes set to divesting the Nord of her armor after Zudarra laid her down, promising with a kind smile that their friend would be carefully watched and fed when she stirred.

 

Saraven touched the Nord's hand – warm, he could feel the pulse fluttering through her skin – and nodded to the Imperial.  “Thank you.  Her name is Brithe.  Please make sure she knows Saraven will be back for her,” he said.  The healer nodded, obviously touched by his concern; he turned away with his brow knitted as he went to follow Zudarra out of the stone room.  He hated what he had done, but it was important that she should know he had not abandoned her.

 

“So.. Did she agree..?” Zudarra asked under her breath.

 

“Yes,” he whispered.  As they moved out into the hallway he said, “She was with Glarius, the man whose body I burnt.  She's lost everyone she knew.”  There was no danger in anyone overhearing that.  It was a simple truth.

 

He stopped talking to look sideways at the Khajiit, white eyebrow raised.

 

“You knew that I would ask.  Even now?”

 

Zudarra stifled an impulse to roll her eyes.

 

“Obviously.  You're still _you_ , Saraven, and I know you would never put your needs before another's or harm them on purpose.  Being what we are...” She lowered her voice even though they were alone in the hall.  “Being what we are does not make us monsters.  People like me, like most of us who willingly turn, were monsters from the start.”  Bitterness crept into her voice then.  She was telling him too much, she knew.  Zudarra crossed her arms over her chest, so naked without her armor, and turned her head away from him.

 

It crossed her mind that any agreement made in the midst of deep grief could barely be considered binding, but she would not say that to Saraven.  It was good that he found a thrall.  Whether Brithe consented or not was truly irrelevant to Zudarra.

 

“You think better of me than I deserve.”  He looked at her in surprise.  This must have been creeping up for a long time, because she certainly had not been of this view when they met.  “I do the things I do because I have to, same as anyone.”

 

He looked forward again as they walked.  

 

“Gave that some thought when I was alive,” he said quietly.  “The ones I've hunted and killed, they're the ones that have never tried to be anything else.  I think that's the difference between a hero and a monster, Zudarra.  Not having a better nature than other people.  Struggling against the nature that we have.”

 

It had to be that way, or he had no way to go on; but still, it was a sincere belief.

 

“You've done that since I've known you, or I would not have survived that night on the road, or Anvil afterward, or inside the Skingrad gate.”

 

Zudarra silently considered his words, taking no solace in it.  Initially, she allowed Saraven to live for her own benefit.  Saraven did not know of Molag Bal's threat; he did not know that for Zudarra to kill him was to condemn herself to an eternity of torture.  She had to begrudgingly admit that she was glad Saraven had survived this far, despite the guilt of what she'd done.  To lose him may have harmed her more, although she didn't understand why.

 

“You were a Daedra worshipper,” she said suddenly, a seemingly inexplicable shift in topic.  “Don't you have to make some sort of pact with them, offer your soul to a Prince before they can claim it?  Or because we aren't mortal anymore...  What I'm trying to say is, does Molag Bal own our souls?”  Her brows knit in confusion as she stopped, turning to him.  For a brief moment fear flashed in her eyes, a small crack in her mask of composure.

 

He was surprised again, white eyebrows rising.  He knew so little of what generally went on in the Cathay-raht's head.  Perhaps he should be trying harder.

 

“Hard to say anything for certain about a Daedra Prince,” he said.  “You choose an Aedra.  A Daedra chooses you.  Molag Bal's been known to torture a good person until they break and twist and fall into his service, but vampires in Cyrodiil are aligned as much or more with Clavicus Vile.  It's why we can walk in sunlight.  So I guess the most correct answer would be, only if he decides he wants us, specifically, and nobody else wants us more.  I know that's not very comforting.”

 

Zudarra frowned.

 

“No,” she said slowly.  “It's not.  But I don't intend to die, so I suppose it doesn't matter.”  The fear was gone from her face in favor of her usual arrogance, her tone so self-assured that she even believed the words herself.

 

“Anyway,” she continued before he could wonder why she had asked, “I really do have to get Galmir.  He must've burned through our supplies while we were gone.  He can get a good meal at the castle while we wait.  You seem to be okay around these people, so I won't insist that you come with me.  It's up to you.”

 

“I'll wait here,” Saraven said.  It would give her a chance to feed while she was out, without having him there staring at her.  Or perhaps she would rather he had to watch, because she'd had to watch him so often already.  He couldn't dwell on that in detail without being buried in horror and loathing again, so he chose not to do it.

 

Zudarra left him with some reluctance.  Would he really be okay?  He had been perfectly fine around the Argonians, around the survivors in the castle.  It was only when he actually began feeding on the Nord that he'd lost control.  The Khajiit kept that thought in her mind as she hurried across town.  The sun was edging toward a red horizon and Galmir must be wondering what was keeping them.

 

She stabled their horses at the castle and went with Galmir to the communal dinner table with the intent of shoveling food into her bag when no one was looking.  One of the Argonians from earlier recognized her there, and it didn't take long before others made the connection that she was the hero of Anvil.  They were eager for any news from other cities so she told them what she knew, and by the end of the night her bag was heavy with gifts of gold – she decided pay Frida for her work despite being offered it for free – and provisions courtesy of Count Caro himself.

 

Finding the others returned, Saraven went to give Ves a brushing.  The horse spent a full minute snorfling his head and neck, trying to figure out why he smelled wrong, but in the end decided he was still him and accepted a carrot and a currying.  Saraven was unable to convince the ostler to accept payment when he asked if they had a spare pillion.  

 

He was finding himself also gifted with gold and provisions in a less dramatic way.  Many people recognized him as the Dunmer who had been with Zudarra the Bloody.  It was peculiar and uncomfortable.  Some of them even knew his name.  He did not at all understand her craving for this sort of recognition.  But then, it had been part and parcel of her old job.  His work would only have been impaired by notoriety.  Most people who openly advertised themselves as vampire hunters were fakes, and in a few cases even vampires themselves (he had spent a memorable week in Bruma finding that out).

 

It felt very strange, having no urge to sleep.  He had usually been too distracted by his own exhaustion to pay attention to that aspect of Zudarra's life.  No wonder she had always been so impatient with him and with Galmir.  But Galmir did need to sleep and Brithe was recovering, so their departure for Bravil would have to wait until morning.

 

* * *

 

Daydreams-Under-Shade walked North under the light of the moons, the tall grass of the silvery field that lay beside the river rustling with every step.  To look at the glittering black river that snaked across the land and the blue-black hills beyond, all of it shrouded in a thin mist that seemed to glow with moonlight, stirred bittersweet longing.  The illusions of this world were wondrous in their beauty, but so wicked in the depths of their deception!  She would be free of it soon.

 

The thump-thump-sshhh of the turning water wheel brought her attention to the mill, and Daydreams altered her course down-slope toward the river.  It was a dreadfully ancient building, all sun-bleached stone crawling with moss at the base and gray, mildewed planks above that.  Smoke rose from a chimney protruding from the thatched roof.  It did not sit on the river directly, but was nearby, a little channel having been carved into the bank to divert a small stream to the wheel.

 

Daydreams stopped on the broken stone of the threshold and knocked, three rapid taps and a pause before the last.  She heard the clinking of a chain and the door creaked open.

 

A fire was roaring in the hearth of the musty room, the sudden light blinding her to the two burgundy-robed figures that stood waiting inside before her yellow eyes adjusted.  A small dining table and chairs sat on the other side of the room, unused.  The one that had opened the door was a Dunmer, and he pulled back his hood to reveal a smooth, heavy-jowled faced after glancing out the door behind her and shutting it.

 

“Well, Agent?” he asked expectantly.  It was then that Daydream's eyes adjusted to an imposing figure standing in the shadows of the corner, and her heart started with fear before she remembered herself.  He was a dremora, tall and lithe and clad in a robe like the others, but black and adorned with some red emblem across his breast that she did not understand.  It seemed to depict some sort of bony, multi-legged insectoid with a long mammalian snout.  It was no animal the Argonian had ever heard described even in myth.  His little white horns and bald head shone with reflected firelight and the dremora looked contemptuously at Daydreams, lips pulled up in a grimace as if he discovered her to be dog shit on the bottom of his shoe.  With effort she tore her eyes away from his to regard the mer who had spoken and dipped her head respectfully before responding.

 

“Master Ulven.  I know the ones who closed the gate here in Leyawiin and word is they are responsible for closing several others.  One is a large Khajiit called Zudarra, and the other is a Dunmer by name of Saraven Gol.  They are both vampires, sir.  Others overhear that they leave for Bravil in the morning.”

 

The taller robed figure, an Altmer she was unacquainted with, whipped her head toward the dremora and screeched accusingly.

 

“Your people were supposed to intercept them in the Deadlands!”

 

“I know nothing more of what happened there than you do,” the dremora answered in its grating metallic voice, dripping with a hatred it made no attempt to mask.  Daydreams shuddered.  “Lying in wait like a lowly spider for one's prey is not our way, and it is no wonder the tactic failed to produce honorable results.”

 

“No matter,” the Altmer said sharply, seeming to despise him just as much.  She removed one of her black gloves to access a ring beneath it. “You will make up for the failure.  Agent, you will follow them and kill them when you can.  Velehk will accompany you, and he will make himself useful, or he will have his own superiors to answer to.”  The dremora growled but did not argue.  “Show this signet ring to Alberic Vanne at the castle and he will supply you with anything you require.  You can use the ring to call Velehk to you.”  

 

The sudden surge of adrenaline was very much like fear, but Daydreams reminded herself that she was not afraid to die as she accepted the ring.  It was some black metal, a rising sun engraved on the flat top.  She removed her leather glove and put it on underneath.  

 

To die would be to reach paradise, to be free of her slavery to the Hist and the prison of the Aedra.  Daydreams-Under-Shade was most certainly not afraid of _that_.

 

“Thank you,” she said, bowing again before she turned to leave.  “The will of Lord Dagon shall be done.”

 

* * *

 

 

The following morning they returned to Frida's forge for Zudarra to be fitted with her new armor while Saraven replaced his ruined padding trousers and put together the rest of a suit of steel chainmail: boots, greaves, hood and gauntlets.  He hooked the broken link he had salvaged into the inside of the left gauntlet between the second and third fingers, where it would grind the rough edges into the web of his hand when he made a fist.    

 

Saraven found that he had been right.  Zudarra was a sight to terrify and impress in her new adamantium.  He was completely ignorable in his gray mail.  The Orc had been close to Zudarra's size and the cuirass was barrel-shaped instead of form-fitting, so very little modification had to be done.  The most drastic alteration had been to the greaves, as the Cathay-raht's shins were much shorter than that of a mer.  Thin horns rose majestically from the sides of the helm and small claws jutted out at the sides, cradling her jaw.  

 

Zudarra grinned proudly, freshly polished adamantium gleaming orange in the light of the forge fire as she flexed to test her mobility.  Saraven watched with his hood back and arms folded, his eyes squinted slightly in amusement.  This was the Zudarra that he had loved; at her best she was proud and fearless, a warrior whom anyone would be proud to fight beside.

 

 _Strength_ , said the new vampiric impulses unhelpfully.   _Now is a worse time than ever.  You should have attacked her while she was unarmored._

 

 _You are not in charge here,_ Saraven told himself.

 

“We'll meet you outside,” she said to Saraven when their equipment had been squared away, thinking he might wish to visit the infirmary alone.  He nodded in response and turned to go.  

 

The infirmary was again very quiet.  It was early, and most of the residents were still sleeping.  The healer waved to him from across the room, where she was spoon-feeding a small boy whose red-rimmed eyes said he had seen horrors.  The Nord sat on the edge of her bed, buckling on her iron boots. She looked like she'd had a wash since he'd seen her last.  Her hair was damp and plaited back in a braid that hung to her shoulderblades.  Brithe was still pale, but she looked better, blue eyes sharper and more aware.  The pain still lurked.  It was there in the deep grooves from mouth to nose, in the lines forming around her eyes.  She looked up as she heard him approach.

 

“You did come back, Saraven Gol,” she said.

 

“Yes, Brithe Aglasdottir.”  He sat down beside her about two feet away, resting a hand on his own knee.  He could hear her heart beating, see the movement of her breasts under her shirt as she breathed.  He flexed the fingers of his left hand inside his mail gauntlet, letting the discomfort of the embedded link scraping his skin focus him back onto important things.  “Have you eaten?”

 

“Yes.  The thing you did to me,” she said.  “It didn't last.”

 

“I can bring it back,” he said.  “Do you want me to now?”

 

She looked around for the infirmarian.  “In front of her?”

 

“I don't have to feed to reach your mind,” he said.  “You aren't ready for that anyway, won't be for a while yet.  Are you ready to come with me now?  We'll be riding to Bravil, and then you will be left with our companion while Zudarra and I go into the next gate.”

 

“I need a weapon,” she said.

 

“What weapon do you use?”

 

“A warhammer.”

 

“You won't be able to fight as well,” Saraven said.  “Not for a while.  But we'll get you a light hammer and a buckler.  At least you'll be able to defend yourself and Galmir from a thief or a bandit.  We'll stop at Frida's on our way out.”

 

She nodded.  “Good.  Now, please.”

 

“All right.  Look at me.”  She met his eyes obediently.  He sought his way in, and it was easy, she offered not the slightest resistance. _See only me.  Feel only calm._  She embraced the command hungrily, feeling grief and despair melt gently into trance, and he watched her features smooth out, the muscles around her eyes relaxing.  He fed back pleasure, and had the satisfaction of watching her sigh, color mounting into her pale face.

 

“Are you ready to go, Brithe?” he asked her.

 

“Yes, Saraven,” she said calmly.  “I'm ready to go.”

 

There was a brief delay at Frida's, but in a few minutes they were on their way out of the castle gate.  Brithe walked along beside him in her half-armor with the one-hand hammer on her hip and her buckler on her back, looking at nothing, listening to the silence in her head.

 

Zudarra looked on with some jealousy as Saraven emerged with his thrall, so large, so strong compared to her little waif of an elf.  She could see from Brithe's vacant expression that she'd been mesmerized, but did not smell her blood on Saraven.  That was curious.  He resisted the temptation to feed much better than Zudarra would have when she was new.  

 

That fact soured her mood as they rode out.  She listened irritably as Galmir introduced himself to the newcomer and attempted to chat, eventually letting off when he realized she didn't have much to say.

 

The rising of the sun seemed to clear away the mist and by noon the air was comfortably warm.  The road to Bravil closely followed the river; with the smoldering ruins of Leyawiin out of sight behind them and a beautiful green expanse before them, it was easy to forget that Nirn was under siege.  The tall grass and purple foxglove whispered softly in a light breeze and fat dragonflies darted across their path to dance above the glimmering water.

 

Having Brithe ride behind him, arms around his waist, head often resting on his shoulder, was consistently distracting for Saraven. They had left the fourth horse in Leyawiin for whoever should happen to need it, as he could not be sure the new beast would be able to endure the proximity of both vampires and eventually fire without bolting.  He was beginning to regret that decision now.  Her throat was so close to him that he could hear her blood pulsing in his ears. He had frequent recourse to the ring stuck into his gauntlet, curling and uncurling the fingers of his left hand. It made him more tense and irritable as the ride wore on, listening to Galmir's chatter and Brithe's monosyllabic responses. He gradually hunched over more in the saddle, and the cessation of chatter was finally a relief. The bases of his fangs itched.

 

It was about that time that they passed through a small country village of no importance, little more than a cluster of squat stone huts with thatched roofs.  There were no people outside, but the thud of hooves on the single dirt road that ran through the town brought faces to the windows.  A few people opened their doors to watch them pass by, and Zudarra heard awestruck murmurs of “Knights!” or “Where is the Legion?” in fearful tones.  They stopped briefly to speak to a farmer who wanted news of Leyawiin and offered them a bag of pears in return.

 

Behind them, a dot on the horizon, Daydreams-Under-Shade rode along on a bay mare, courtesy of Count Caro even if the Count did not know it.  She still wore her leather armor, but now two silver daggers were strapped across her right thigh in addition to a silver shortsword on her hip and a small wooden buckler on her arm.  A baldric containing an array of potions lay across her chest, each in its own little tube sewn into the leather.  She took no pains to hide her face and enjoyed the warmth of the sun against her scales, but it dwarfed in comparison to the heat of the ring beneath her glove.  She imagined that she could feel Velehk's burning hatred for the people of Nirn, ready to be unleashed at her command.  

 

She felt sorry for the vampires.  Daydreams did not want anyone to suffer.  But her work was necessary, and when they were free of this world they would thank her.  The village of Water's Edge was still within sight behind them.  As soon as it was not, she pressed her legs against the mare's side until she broke into a gallop, the thunder of hooves joining the thunder of Daydreams' heart in her ear.

 

As she approached, she plucked out the first potion in her belt: fortify speed.  She thumbed off the cap and downed it, shucking the empty vial alongside the road.  The world slowed; her mare plodded along with majestic strength, muscles rippling beneath her coat with every pound of hoof against road.  Zudarra heard the approaching horse, turned to look with disinterest and back again, not recognizing the rider.  As soon as she looked away again Daydreams drew her sword and angled herself for Saraven's shoulder to unhorse him.

 

At least his thrall was not suffering.  That was something, right?  Saraven was trying to lift his mood with this and other such assertions when he heard an incredibly fast thunder of hooves and he was just turning to see what it was when he was struck in the shoulder by an incredible impact.  He was knocked sideways, and Brithe, too sleepy and dull to react, slid off with him into the road.  He heard Ves snort, and then Shadow clomping sideways, barely avoiding stepping on either of them.  Saraven snatched up the Nord and ran for the side of the road, completely ignoring her heavier weight as he tossed her into what he hoped was a thornless bush.  He spun back toward the road, reaching for his sword.

 

The Argonian had galloped past as Saraven hit the ground and now wheeled around to face them, leaping from the back of her mount even before it fully completed its turn.  Zudarra realized with a jolt who it was.

 

“What are you doing?” the vampire snarled, saddle creaking as she stood to dismount.  Galmir, in his usual idiocy, had apparently forgotten how to stop his horse and rode on past them, looking fearfully over his shoulder whilst sputtering a series of startled exclamations such as “Dear me!” and “By Y'ffre!”

 

“I'm setting you free,” Daydreams-Under-Shade responded, toothy mouth hanging open in a joyful smile as she raised her left fist to the air.  Magicka crackled behind Zudarra as she clomped to the ground, turning to the source of the noise.  A swirling vortex of white light unfurled around a black shape and a dremora mage stepped forward, glancing about himself with a grave expression.  Zudarra's eyes narrowed and she reached for the hilt of her axe.

 

The corner of the dremora's lip shifted up and he hurled fire at the Khajiit.  She darted aside and flames exploded on the ground behind the horses.  Shadow squealed, eye whites flashing as he bolted off the road, kicking up dust behind him.

 

Ves dithered and danced sideways, springing over a ditch to trot around behind the bush where Brithe had landed.  He was familiar with fireballs, but the noise had been loud and close to him, and Saraven's scent no longer reassured him as it once had.  The gelding finally gave in and fled after Shadow, the other horse he had been near the most often.

 

Saraven was equally startled to recognize the Argonian who had aided them in Leyawiin, but Zudarra's question and her answer made it apparent what was happening even before the dremora appeared.  He circled them, face intent, trying to put the dremora between himself and Zudarra so that they could not both be caught by the same spellflare, and then he clenched his left hand – the broken link in his gauntlet jabbed the web of his hand – and shoved it open toward Daydreams-Under-Shade.  White fingers of lightning crackled out toward the Argonian.  He hated to harm an animal, but sometimes it couldn't be helped.

 

Threads of white light crawled through the air.  Daydreams danced nimbly aside just before it struck her mare, shutting her nostrils against the unexpected stink of burning flesh.  The animal jerked noiselessly for a long second.  When the lightning had ceased its flashing across her coat, the mare swayed and toppled to the side with a heavy thud, a smoking black corpse.

 

Zudarra sprinted for the dremora as she swung the battleaxe from its harness.  He grinned at her, hopping backward as he flicked a wrist.  A purple shell of magicka flashed around Velehk as Zudarra swung for his chest.  The axe slowed as it passed through the barrier, as if underwater, and the dremora grabbed the haft below the head.  Zudarra's weight slammed against him and they staggered back together, her eyes locking on his as she snarled in rage at having been thwarted.  Fire burst from his hand again, this time traveling down the shaft in a burning spiral and Zudarra screamed, releasing her weapon and flying back on her paws as if thrown.

 

Daydreams dashed at Saraven with a speed he would not have seen in any mortal, silver blade aimed for his head.

 

Saraven was already halfway to the Argonian when the mare fell dead, but he was not expecting how fast she moved, had not connected the suddenness of her approach with that probability.  He jerked his head to one side, but the blade ploughed a furrow along his temple and scalp, scattering white hair and a small spray of blood, drawing a line of sharp pain.  He slashed at her neck as he spun away, a poor stroke weakened by the impact.  He knew it would miss.

 

The Argonian darted away from his strike and whirled to follow him, circling closer with her buckler held between them, knowing she had to end this before the potion ran out.  She feinted a jab at his face while attempting to bash his sword hand with her buckler instead.

 

This time he was ready for her to be faster than expected, but the feint was completely logical and it worked; as he ducked away she smashed at his right hand with the buckler.  There was a crack as it hit his right middle knuckle first, the gauntlet only blunting the blow a little, and pain exploded through that hand.  He lost his grip on the sword, but he dropped to one knee with incredible speed to catch it in his left hand, jabbing upward at her throat under the chin.  It hurt his left hand as well, the embedded link stabbing him, but he accepted that as a necessary cost.  It hurt less than his broken right.

 

Brithe was lying among leaves and twigs, supported by something scratchy and uncomfortable that jabbed into the clothing padding her back and legs.  She stared up at the blue sky for a moment as she listened to the sounds of roaring flames and running horses.  Something was happening, but she couldn't bring herself to care what.  Saraven would probably take care of it.

 

Saraven.  She couldn't see him, and her opening and closing hands did not touch him.  That was a problem, she realized with a jolt, and she started actively fighting to clear the fog, struggling upright.  Why am I in a bush?  She clambered out and to her feet, brushing twigs out of her hair, and stared around at the road.

 

Velehk's torso twisted as he lobbed Zudarra’s battleaxe behind himself and it sailed into the river with a loud plash, never taking his eyes from the Khajiit.  She healed her burnt hands with a quick flick of her wrist and growled, circling the dremora, calculating her next move when his eyes flicked to something behind her and he stretched out a hand.

 

“Die, mortal filth,” he said calmly, releasing the blast of fire.  Zudarra easily dodged aside from the attack that had never been intended for her, the heat of the fireball warming her face as it hurtled toward Brithe.

 

Saraven was there, fighting an Argonian Brithe felt she should recognize but could not quite remember.  The big Cathay-raht was there, and the horses were gone, and...  Dremora.  Every shred of pain and loathing she had felt in the last three days flooded back, a jolt of adrenaline up her spine cold and sharp as an icicle.  Her body was weak, but the reluctance in her lax muscles was gone in an instant.  She dove and rolled to the side as she roared the Woad of her ancestors, and the purple glow of the shield sprang up around her just before the fireball impacted on the bush where she had been trapped.  Flames exploded around it, blasting her right side with heat, but the Woad saved her from the worst of it.  She kept rolling until she hit her knees and then was on her feet, charging the daedra with bared teeth and wide, mad eyes.

 

One hand darted to jerk her warhammer from the thong at her hip.

 

The dremora strafed to the side to keep both mortals in his line of sight and hurled blast after blast at the charging Nord.  The Khajiit behind her blinked from existence, the air where she had stood rippling as if from great heat.

 

Brithe could not have dodged, did not have the energy to move that fast.  Even less did she have the will.  She yanked the buckler off her back and ploughed forward with it up in front of her face, and that and the Woad kept the flames from killing her, but they scorched her clothing, the wooden front of the shield, her upraised arms.  By the time she reached the dremora the warhammer's hilt was on fire, but that did not make her let go.  She screamed in rage and agony as she swung the weapon.

 

The dremora tried to dash aside but something closed around his wrists, something hard pressed against his back and cool, furred lips were brushing against his neck, the pointy claws of her helm poking into him.  The Khajiit's fangs forced their way through his flesh as the hammer collided with his skull - the force was greatly deadened by his shield, but it was enough to stun him, head throbbing painfully from crown to horns.  Zudarra barely twitched at the impact that jostled her, too lost in ecstasy to care.  The rush of hot blood, the furious pounding of his heart, all of it absorbed Zudarra completely as she shimmered into view, crimson eyes rolling back in their sockets.

 

Brithe raised the hammer again, but then the dremora shuddered in a strange way, and the air behind him trembled like a heat wave and became Zudarra the Bloody, fangs locked in the creature's neck.  She lowered the weapon, backing away, and then realized she was on fire.  The Nord threw herself flat and rolled about until the flames went out, breath hissing between her teeth, heart pounding in her ears.  She fetched up lying on her side, warhammer still clutched in her hand.  Her sleeves had completely burnt away from her forearms, and the flesh was bubbling and peeling where they had been.  The front of her shirt and pants was black above her iron boots.

 

Daydreams-Under-Shade bashed the hilt of her sword against Saraven's skull as his blade pierced her jaw from below, slicing through tongue and the upper roof of her mouth.  An automatic scream ripped from her throat, agony lancing through her face again as her head jerked back and her mouth tried to open, the serrated blade tearing at her flesh.  She thrashed stupidly, desperately trying to knock the sword from Saraven's hands.  Her screams turned to gurgles as blood filled her mouth.

 

Saraven's head was knocked back, the world spinning around him as his vision filled with sparks, but the scent of blood was maddening.  He could not succumb to unconsciousness with that filling his nostrils.  His head snapped forward, mouth opening in a snarl, and he lunged for the Argonian's throat as he jerked the sword free.  His teeth fastened around the artery on one side of her throat as he pinned her arms to her sides, fanatically strong, and drank and drank and drank.  He was aware of nothing else.  The pleasure quickly blotted out the pain.

 

Daydreams-Under-Shade jerked against his iron grip until her strength drained away with her blood.  She could process nothing but the horrible throbbing agony in her mouth and neck.  Regret for her wasted life and bitter failure did not even cross the Argonian's mind as she gradually slipped away in his hands.  

 

Saraven kept drinking until the blood stopped flowing.  With a shock he realized he had not even tried to spare a mortal victim pain.  Her heart had already stopped, silence in his ears, flesh cooling in his hands.  He let go, watching the desiccated body drop like a puppet with cut strings.  His injuries were healed.  His right hand no longer hurt.  Now he clenched his left fist to try and push back the tide of guilt and self-loathing, concentrating on the pain.  He stood staring at the corpse with eyes wide and gray lips parted around his bloodied fangs.

 

Brithe was lying on the ground. _So much pain._  Where was Glarius?  No, Glarius was dead, his ashes lying in the square in Leyawiin where he had fallen.  She moved her right hand, casting her pitiful healing spell.  It eased the pain a little, but the burns still hurt fiercely, new flesh red and damaged instead of bubbling and melted.  She looked around for – Dunmer – steel chainmail -

 

“Saraven...?” she whispered.

 

He jerked upright at the sound of his own name, looking around.  The dremora was not long for this plane with Zudarra already at his throat.   _Strength.  Mine!_  He growled under his breath as he clenched his left fist again, jerking his eyes away.  No, damn it, he would not make her hit him in the head again to make him behave like a rational being.  There was something important, something he should be doing.

 

 _Brithe_.  She was lying on the ground, badly burned, her clothes scorched.  He moved in a blur of speed to kneel beside her, reaching out to cup a hand under her cheek as the fingers of the other curled around to sketch the gesture of his healing spell.  Blue light spiraled up around the Nord.  She slumped, gasping in relief as the pain faded.

 

“You're all right.”  He reached down to help her sit up, supporting her with an arm around her shoulders.  She looked past him at Zudarra, staring.  “Come on.  Don't watch.”

 

“I want to see him die,” she said fiercely, raising a hand to push at his shoulder as he tried to block her view.  He shifted position, still supporting her as she stared unblinkingly at Zudarra feeding on the creature.

 

The dremora finally stopped jerking in her grasp, his low rumbling roar dying away as he did, but Zudarra never lost her grip on his wrists.  Her black claws drew blood where they poked into his flesh.  She continued to suck greedily until the corpse was dry and shriveled and Zudarra reluctantly let the body fall to her feet in a heap.  She stood hunched over the corpse, chin stained red with dripping blood, her wild eyes flitting from Saraven to Brithe.  A heart was beating, weak but alive, pounding in her ears.  She snarled and bared her red fangs to him, tail thrashing, a challenge for his thrall.

 

Further down the road, Galmir had finally collected his wits enough to stop his mare, and had turned around to watch the battle.  He came trotting up to them now, fretfully wringing the reigns in his hands, oblivious to the animalistic rage that had overtaken his mistress.

 

Brithe stared at her, uncomprehending, and then her view was blocked by the Dunmer as he let go and leaped to his feet, bloody sword in hand.  He bared his teeth at Zudarra in return, undeterred by size, by armor, by the faintest glimmer of common sense.  The paler red of his sclera showed all the way around each iris as he faced her down, teeth bared.

 

And then he clenched his left fist.  Pain stabbed into his hand and he jerked his head to the side, forced to keep her in sight but removing that challenging glare as his lips flattened to a thin line.

 

Zudarra growled throatily and moved toward them, bloody froth dribbling from her mouth as her tongue worked against her teeth.  She could _smell_ weakness in both of them, she could smell the inferior blood of an Argonian still on his lips and the recent discharge of magicka.  This young vampire was no match for her, and he dared to guard her prey!  

 

“No, Zudarra,” he rasped.  “Get hold of yourself.  You're better than this.”

 

His words were jarring and comprehension slowly dawned in her eyes.  Horror passed over the Khajiit's face as her muscles relaxed and she stood, then jerked away and stalked over to the river to retrieve her weapon.

 

Saraven shut his eyes for a second. _Strength.  Chase her now, stab her in the back!  Shut up shut up shut up._  He turned to offer Brithe a hand.  She accepted it and let him pull her to her feet.  

 

“What was that about?” she asked wearily.

 

“Daedric blood is potent,” he said.  “It can make us a little mad.”  He was aware of a thin trickle of his own blood inside his gauntlet, cool and nasty against his skin.  He let the wound stay for now.  He needed the pain.  The corpse of the dremora had not yet faded, and the scent of its tantalizing ichor was still on the air.  He wanted to turn and throw himself on Brithe, to assert his ownership by feeding again immediately.  He dared not.  It would probably kill her, at the very least would hurt her badly when she was still weak.

 

“Come on,” he said gruffly.  “We'll find the horses.”  He turned toward the direction they had bolted.  There were fields for a half-mile in every direction, and a little copse of oaks in the near distance, a reasonable place for a frightened creature to seek cover.  Brithe walked beside him, looking back over her shoulder at the dead daedra.  Bits of her clothing crackled and fell off as she walked.

 

* * *

 

 

 _It happened again.  Why is this happening to me?!_  Zudarra’s thoughts raced as the mask came over her face again and white hot fury boiled inside.  She was angry at herself for the loss of control and angry at Saraven for having witnessed it, for not having shared in her shame, for being stronger than her.  She stopped at the water's edge, glaring at her proud reflection on the glassy surface.  A black shape was visible beneath, entangled in water weeds.

 

“Galmir!” she barked without turning.  “Get over here and fetch my battleaxe from the river!”

 

“Yes, of course!” he yelped, scrabbling down from his horse, racing to her side and slogging into the water without hesitation.  The current was calm but the riverbed sloped steeply, the water several feet deep where the axe had landed.

 

Galmir hauled the giant axe from the riverbed, hugging the heavy thing to his chest as he struggled out of the water.  Zudarra stared at him dispassionately, looking through him completely and lost in her sullen thoughts until he was in standing in front of her dripping wet, bowing backward under the weight of his burden.  She yanked the axe from him one-handed and turned back up the short slope to the road, the sudden shift in balance nearly knocking him off his feet.  She scowled at the receding backs of the Dunmer and Nord and went to find cloth from Galmir's saddle bag to dry her weapon.  She heard retching behind her; the Bosmer must have got a good look at the desiccated corpses.

 

After that, she searched the bodies.  The dremora had nothing.  The Argonian had several healing potions that the poor fool had never been able to use.  There were other potions she did not recognize by smell, but had to assume were more speed fortifiers.  Zudarra sat crouched on her heels, regarding the corpse with a mixture of irritation and curiosity.  What was it she had said?

 

 _I'm setting you free._  Was she a vampire hunter?  No, not with a bound dremora.  Zudarra pulled off the leather glove, carelessly tossing it into the grass alongside the road, and plucked the black ring from a bony finger.  Wherever it came from, it was forged from the same metal as their daedric weapons.  She turned it in her claws, examining the thing from every angle, but the only adornment was the engraving of a half-sun on the horizon.  

 

 _The Mythic Dawn._  Some people had mentioned that during dinner in Castle Leyawiin.  They had been responsible for the Emperor's assassination.  The attack made a little more sense now... barely.  Zudarra couldn't understand why anyone would willingly serve a Prince, let alone one like Mehrunes Dagon who sought to destroy the entire world.

 

Zudarra stood suddenly, closing the ring in her fist and gathering up the baldric full of potions in her other hand.  Galmir was several feet away with his horse, his face pressed against the mare's white cheek while he stroked her muzzle.  He whispered softly to her, probably unaware that Zudarra could hear it.

 

“Shh, Elwaen.  We're safe now.  Dead bodies can't hurt you.  Zudarra wouldn't let anything bad happen to either of us, you know.”

 

“You named it?” Zudarra asked, looming up behind him to deposit the ring and the potions in his bag.  Galmir started and looked at her sheepishly.

 

“Elwaen moths are white with black speckles, like her.  I don't know if you have those around here, but we have them back in... Valenwood.”  His voice trailed off and he seemed to be looking very far away before shifting his gaze to the horse.  He continued to stroke her pink nose and Elwaen's lids drooped over her liquid brown eyes in silent appreciation.

 

Zudarra looked softly at the Bosmer for possibly the first time in her life.  It had never crossed her mind to enthrall someone she wasn't feeding on, but Saraven had done it on his second day.  She reached out and his mind fell open like a book, the images of fire and smoke and burned corpses tumbling out into hers.  Zudarra pushed them all away.

 

 _Peace.  Calm.  Happiness.  None of this matters.  You belong to me.  Only I matter.  Only now matters._  He accepted the orders without resistance and sighed, leaning against his mare, the hand on her nose slowing in its stroking.  Zudarra could feel the short fur under her own fingers, so soft and silky.  She could feel his unwavering trust, could feel the joy and love oozing from Galmir's mind like sweet syrup.   _Good,_ she thought, pulling away.  It had badly needed doing, with his four days alone.

 

“Bring Elwaen.  We'd better see if Saraven found the horses,” Zudarra said.  Galmir nodded dreamily and fell in behind her leading Elwaen by the bridle, leaving two curiously bloodless corpses and the Bosmer's breakfast on the road behind them.

 

* * *

 

 

Saraven approached the treeline with narrowed eyes, listening.  It would be a dreadful sort of irony to survive an encounter like the last one and then be shot by bandits or set afire by necromancers because he wasn't paying attention.  He heard a couple of hearts beating, but they did not waken his hunger: not man or mer.  

 

He stopped in the shade and whistled, then called softly, “Ves.  Has'anagh.”  Brithe leaned against a tree beside him, head drooping, uncomplaining but exhausted.  After a moment a black nose appeared around a tree up ahead of them.  Ves's nostrils flared as he scented them both.  Then he nickered and trotted forward to nose Saraven's outstretched hand.  The Dunmer patted his neck, praising him in Dunmeris as he took hold of the bridle.  “Where's your big friend gone?”

 

He heard stamping and blowing from not that far ahead.  He tried to remember what commands he had heard Zudarra use with the big black horse and finally settled on clicking his tongue loudly, a signal trained into many of the beasts before they were sold.  Shadow edged up to them more reluctantly, ears forward, nostrils wide.

 

“It's all right, fire's all gone,” Saraven told him, holding out his right hand.  The horse sidled up to have a sniff, then let his bridle be seized as well, snorting and grumbling at the way he had been alarmed.  Saraven made soothing noises at him.  Ves turned to snuffle at Brithe's hair.  She laughed weakly, raising a hand to pat his nose.

 

“What do you want, silly thing?”

 

“He likes human women,” Saraven said.  “I think one owned him before me.”  Certainly he'd been putty in Clara's hands all those years ago.  “Lean on him as we walk.  He won't mind.”  He flexed his left hand again.  Shadow complained under his breath at the stink of vampire blood, but it was not completely unfamiliar to him. He let himself be led out of the trees as Brithe both led and leaned on Ves, her left arm draped around the horse's neck.  She spoke to him in her own tongue, and his ears flickered at the unfamiliar words.

 

He could see Zudarra off in the distance, moving off the road and through the tall grass toward them.  He raised a hand to attract her attention.  He had wanted to check whether the Argonian's leather armor would fit Brithe, but on second thought he suspected the woman had been too small; and he did not want to touch the dremora, Zudarra's kill, until he was sure she had calmed down.

 

Zudarra let them come to her and took Shadow from Saraven when he approached, glancing over her fellow vampire without hesitation, as if she hadn't just tried to challenge him like a hound fighting over a pork chop.  

 

“She was part of the Mythic Dawn cult,” Zudarra said plainly.  

 

 _Of course._  Saraven had missed that implication completely, worried about momentary concerns.  Again he felt unbalanced, seeing something happen that he would not have allowed to happen before.

 

The Kahjiit’s nose twitched at the bitter smell of his blood – so different from the intoxicating aroma it once had been, she thought with a pang of loss – and looked over the Dunmer, puzzled, searching for his injury.  Whatever it was was small enough to be of no consequence so Zudarra brushed the matter aside, pulling herself up into the saddle to ride back to the road.

 

“Would you burn the body?” She asked over her shoulder.  “Won't do us any good if people find a bloodless corpse around.  I took a signet ring from her, but that's no proof that she attacked us first.”

 

“Sure,” Saraven said.  He helped Brithe mount back up – he had to support a lot of her weight, but that was not hard for him now – and got up in front of her.  She leaned forward to whisper in his ear as he rode back toward the road.  

 

“Saraven.”

 

“Hm?” He reached out, anything to distract himself from her throat pulsing near his ears, and felt her exhaustion.  Grief hovered, waiting for its opportunity to pounce, and he pushed it firmly down, sharing his approval and blanketing her roiling mind with calm.  She gave in immediately, gratefully.

 

 _You are brave and strong.  Feel no pain.  Know that I am proud of you.  Warmth.  Contentment._  In response she squeezed him weakly, animal comfort that she missed from someone she was not thinking of right this minute.  He blocked the awareness that his body had no heat, gently wrapping her in a warm glow.  She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.  When they came to the road he helped her down carefully and arranged her leaning on Ves again.

 

“Good horse,” she told the gelding.  He reached his head back to examine her hair again.  Saraven left him well to one side of the bodies as he went to open his left hand toward the Argonian, letting the fire go.  It WHOMPHED up around the corpse.  Behind him Ves complained, snorting, but he did not run; neither horse was apt to panic when the fire was not right next to them.

 

“I hope you are where you wished to be,” he said to the corpse.

 

“She might regret it when she gets there,” Zudarra said with a snort, watching the body burn from atop her horse.  Galmir had mounted his when Zudarra did and now he stared blankly at the blaze which attracted his scant attention, unperturbed by the sound or the smell of crackling flesh.  Death and spellfire were nothing new to Elwaen, who dropped her head to leisurely graze at the side of the road with no input from her rider.

 

Saraven went to drag the robes off the dremora.  He was wearing some sort of loincloth underneath them, and they were stained at the neck with his blood.  Saraven thought for a moment about what sort of clothes a dremora magus would wear.  Then he carried the robes over to the burning corpse, laid them over his sword, and dangled them in the fire.  The blood crumbled up and turned to dust in the fervent heat, but the cloth seemed unaffected.  Afterward he shook it vigorously to dispel any remaining scents and carried it over to Brithe.

 

“Take those things off and put this on.  Keep your boots and belt.  You can stand behind the bush there if you like.”

 

She nodded dreamily and took her clothes off in the road.  Saraven blinked at her in startlement and then looked away before he saw anything.  If he had seen her dressing in the Guild he would not have thought a thing of it, but their circumstances were different now.  She was so completely in his power that she could not withhold consent to anything he demanded, and in those circumstances his touch must be light.  It was bad enough that he would take her blood.  Let her body otherwise be her own.

 

Zudarra, however, allowed her eyes to roam over the Nord's body with minor interest.  She could scarcely be called a person anymore, and obviously didn't care about her own modesty.  Her body was young and strong, muscular; she had full breasts and very pale areolas, as very light-skinned women sometimes do.  She obviously trimmed but did not shave between her legs.  The hair there matched the hair on her head.  The scars of long wear with an iron cuirass lay on her ribs below her breasts, parallel curving lines from left and right to center.

 

The Khajiit was more interested in Saraven's reaction to her.  She narrowed her eyes at the back of his turned head, recalling that she'd caught him looking her way while she was bathing.

 

“ _Now_ you're a perfect gentleman?” she asked, a hint of an edge to her voice, although she only meant to tease him.

 

So she had seen.  Well, there was no concealing his shame in any area.  That should not surprise him.

 

“I shouldn't have looked at you either,” he said quietly, brow knitted.  “But you don't look the same to me now as you did before.  I can't stop watching to see if you've gotten stronger, or weaker, or if you might take my kill, or if I can take yours.  I hate it, but it's there.”  He went to give Brithe a boost back onto the horse – she needed the help – and then mount back up himself.  She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder again, yawning.

 

Zudarra's dry little smile faded as she absorbed the implication of his words.  So it wasn't just her dealing with the primal urges.  Of course it wasn't!  How stupid was she to think Saraven was spared from it?  He hid it better, that was all.  Her ears were plastered to her skull beneath the helm and Zudarra was thankful for that, else they would have announced her shame.

 

“Come, Galmir,” she said tartly, surging past the others, Shadow's heavy feathered hooves kicking up dust behind her.  Daydreams-Under-Shade was an unrecognizable pile of charred bone and bubbling fat, and no one would accuse them of her murder.

 


	17. Chapter 17

The rest of the day was uneventful and silent now that Galmir had nothing to say.  Zudarra rode in front in a sour mood.  Saraven had been getting on all right, making it easy to forget her guilt.  But now he'd thrown it in her face again, and all of her own grievances with herself as a vampire paraded through her mind.

 

 _When are you going to admit that you hate what you are?  When are you going to admit that you were young and stupid and made a mistake?_  Never, she answered.   _I can't go back.  I have to accept this._

 

But did he?  Could she really ask Saraven to accept an existence he detested just so that... why?  Why had she done it?  Deep inside she already knew the answer: Zudarra didn't want to be alone.  She didn't want to lose the closest thing she'd had to a friend in her entire life.

 

Black clouds had rolled in from the Eastern mountains a few hours before Magnus set, obscuring moon and star alike.  Instead of a brilliant painter's sunset they were treated to a gray curtain that blanked the horizon.  Zudarra was content to ride through the night when the first drop of cold rain splashed against her helm, a tinny echo resounding inside.  A faraway rumble followed not long after.

 

 

Zudarra was angry with him again.  These silences bothered Saraven.  If she would scream at him, vent some defensive words, get it out of her system, then she would calm down and they could generally go on as before.  What was this?  Had he broken some sort of vampire social code she hadn't told him about?  Were they just not supposed to acknowledge the urge to dominate or fight each other?  Or was he supposed to knuckle under without discussion because he was in one way her offspring now?

 

Surely not.  Zudarra had never been one to strongly insist on unwritten rules, or indeed on anything subtle and unspoken.  He had always been the one assuming boundaries that to her did not exist.

 

It was coming on to rain, the sky graying out across the horizon ahead of them.  At the sound of distant thunder Brithe stirred, heart speeding up a little out of the regular deep rhythm that suggested she had been dozing in the saddle behind him.

 

“Zudarra,” he called up ahead.  “The thralls can't ride all night through rain.  And you're a lightning rod in that armor.  We'd better look for a cave or a ruined house.”

 

Zudarra grumbled under her breath, as if Saraven were forcing her to stop and she herself hadn't been thinking the same thing.  It would be a shame if her new armor rusted.  Zudarra began looking around, finally paying attention to the passing landscape she had been largely ignoring so far.  

 

Further down road a moldy little door was set in a hill on their left, a rusted and broken lantern hanging from the doorpost.  A mine, perhaps?  When Zudarra neared she could detect the faint stink of goblins, very old and tinged with blood.  There had been a slaughter.  She waved at Saraven and pointed.  It was the best they could do on short notice, and the droplets were falling faster now, a constant soft patter against her armor and the black river.

 

The forest had grown closer to the road as they neared Bravil and not far away a thicket of trees would provide shelter for the horses.  Saraven hated to leave Ves that far away on a rainy night, but the gelding seemed content enough with Elwaen – apparently the Bosmer had given her a name while they were gone – and Shadow.  They were herd animals, after all, and no mountain lion or bear would attack three of them together.

 

Thinking of wild animals seemed an incredibly small and prosaic concern with everything that had occupied the last few days of his life.  He was too tired to laugh at himself -

 

Tired?  He shouldn't be tired, Zudarra had insisted that was not something she ever felt.  Maybe it was because he was new.  He had to assume the vampires he had killed while they were resting in coffins were just...  No, that didn't make sense either.  Maybe she had been being defensive again.

 

With the horses tied up, Zudarra herded Galmir back to the cave with a hand on his shoulder, her bag and his bedroll under her arms.  She knew the elf could make out nothing more than vague, black shapes in the moonless night and was half asleep as it was.  Saraven guided Brithe after Zudarra's tall and gleaming form in the dark as he hauled the saddlebags and bedroll in his other arm.  He did not suddenly have the ability to see better than a Khajiit in the darkness, but certainly better than he had as a mer.  The Nord swayed and staggered, as Galmir was doing; she had made it through a long day's ride and a trying combat after losing a great deal of blood.  It was a wonder she was still walking.

 

Zudarra had to bow to fit inside the tiny entrance, but was relieved to find that after a short slope down in a narrow tunnel it opened up to a very wide room.  Its size was the only comfort; the air was oppressively damp, and the rotting support beams which held up the ceiling were speckled with mold and mildew.  There was hardly anything inside other than more rotting pieces of wood that had at one time been crates and coils of rope embedded in the dirt.  Everything else had been pilfered long ago.

 

Zudarra's foot kicked something hard; a bone, and the rattling echo as it hit the wall made Galmir jump.  There were a few old remains of the former occupant's prey littered here and there, but none of it was fresh.

 

Brithe shivered as she blinked into the darkness of the cave.  Saraven left her leaning against the wall as he circled the room, sniffing suspiciously, but he neither scented fresh blood nor heard any heart beating.

 

“No air shaft,” he said.  “We can't start a fire or we risk suffocating them.  Bed them down together, to keep warm?”

 

“Sure,” Zudarra shrugged, flopping down the bedroll near a wall and guiding Galmir down to it.  It was so easy to forget that temperature could be more than a minor discomfort to those with living bodies.  She fished water and a packet of jerky out of her bag and shoved it into the Bosmer's hands with an order to eat, then retreated several feet away to remove her armor.  He sat with arms drawn tightly to his chest and chewed slowly, too tired and cold to enjoy the meal.

 

Saraven laid his bedroll out beside Galmir and urged Brithe over to sit on it.  He gave her the water skin and food bag from the saddlebags and laid those down nearby, then took the extra blanket from the other bag and draped it around her shoulders.  “Eat until you're not hungry.  Lie close to Galmir,” he told her.  “You'll be warmer.”  Either of them should be quite safe with the other, with another sad broken soul recently bereft of loved ones and home.

 

Brithe nodded vaguely.  She could probably climb out of the trance if she wished.  He was not forcing her under, and she had chosen to do so when they were attacked.  Right now she did not want to and was too tired to try.  He watched her as he retreated a few feet away with the pliers from his saddlebags.  

 

The Nord ate with some alacrity, hungry from the day's exertion, and then turned to look down at the Bosmer with the water skin still in her hands.  Galmir finished eating first and had curled up miserably on his bedroll.  She put the water skin carefully away in the saddlebag, wiped her hands on her robes, and lay down to scoot up next to him, throwing half her extra blanket over his body.  After a moment the blanket stirred as she threw an arm over him.  She shut her eyes and shed no tears.  The body she held was not Glarius.  He was too small and there was no smell of human sweat and armor polish.  But Glarius would not mind; he was a practical man, and either of them had lain close by a comrade for warmth at different times.  She was warm and at peace, and her stomach was full, and it felt so good to lie down.  It seemed she had been riding forever.  She drifted gladly into the embrace of cottony darkness, silent and without dreams.

 

Galmir was half-asleep when the weight fell across his side and he instinctively scooted back into the warm body beside him.  For a moment he remembered a name and smiled with his eyes still shut.   _Mileth_.  He had found her after all.  Never mind that the body beside his was too thick with muscle and acrid grub-smoke did not cling to her hair.  Her warmth seeped deeper than his skin as Galmir drifted to sleep.

 

Zudarra had been unstrapping her armor while the thralls ate, and now her ears popped free of the helm as she lifted it from her skull and rubbed at an itch inside her ear.  It felt good to have that bucket off her head and shake out her fur, although she could already feel it fuzzing up from the damp of the cave.  Armor maintenance had always been a soothing process for Zudarra, a way of clearing her mind.  She sat cross-legged against the wall, weapon and armor pieces and her bag arranged around her for easy access and began the long process of wiping dry every last corner and crevice of the adamantium and its complicated little designs.

 

Saraven unbuckled his baldric and belt, tugged off the mail shirt and began checking it over for warped links to pinch them back into place.  He looked over at Zudarra, but she seemed to be calmly working on her armor.  Perhaps it was better not to interrupt.  After a moment he took off his mail gauntlets to make the process easier.  There was a brown stain on his left hand where the link had cut him.  He dampened it with spit and wiped it off, leaving the little cut in his hand.  It would heal when next he fed, but it would be easy enough to get it back.  It wasn't as though he need worry about infection now.  

 

Zudarra caught another whiff of old blood and glanced quickly up at Saraven, realizing suddenly that it was something he had done to himself.  She vaguely understood why, which renewed the guilt she'd already been stewing in.  Zudarra carefully kept her eyes on her hands and not on him until the silence roared loud and accusing in her mind.  

 

“No one has had any bad news from Anvil, but I can't help wondering how my mother is doing through all of this,” Zudarra said hesitantly, without looking up.  It was the only thing she could think to say above “How 'bout that rain?”  The storm was picking up and they could hear a sudden wind hurling rainwater against the door.

 

“Well, we could try and write her from Bravil, but I don't know how many of the Black Horse Couriers are still running now,” said Saraven calmly.  He did not sound angry as he bent over the mail shirt, the sound of links sliding occasionally audible under the storm.  “I've been confused.  Do we actually sleep?”

 

Saraven's tone relieved her, although she already knew it wasn't his nature to be angry.  Her quarrel was only with herself.  She chuckled at his question and looked up at his face.

 

“I do sleep, but I don't think I need to.  It's not restful in the way it used to be.  I've stayed awake on the road to guard the rest of you – and a good thing, too, remembering those necromancers.”  Zudarra seemed to have forgotten that she'd been paralyzed and useless for several minutes of that encounter.  “If you want to sleep to pass the time, go ahead.”

 

Saraven grunted acknowledgment as he put the mail shirt and belt back on.  It was so light now.  He could hardly believe the mithral chain had ever wearied him.

 

“Did I say something wrong, back on the road?” he asked.

 

A muscle in her face twitched below the eye, the aborted beginnings of a scowl.  Zudarra did not like to be reminded when she was wrong, usually could twist the evidence in her own mind until she believed she was right, but lately she found it impossible to do that regarding Saraven.

 

“No,” she admitted with difficulty.  “You reminded me of what I did to you, and other thoughts I try not to think of.”  She set aside the pauldron she'd been cleaning and drew up one knee to lay her arm across it, leaning back against the wall as if she couldn't hold herself up any longer with the burden of guilt across her shoulders.

 

Saraven lifted his head suddenly to look at her. _Damn you.  I am the monster you have made me._ He had been furious, starving, grieving his lost mortality, but the words had been as cutting as he could make them at the time.

 

He did not enjoy what he was now, but the more time passed, the further away he drew from that despairing moment in which he had stared into a pillar of fire and wished himself ashes.  Now he stood up and walked over to sit down beside her, back against the wall, shoulder to her shoulder, moving slowly and carefully in order not to trigger a reflex of threat.  Some aggressive back-brained undead thing was agitated at her proximity, insisting that he was in danger, that he should attack now and prosecute the faintest chance that he might survive.  Saraven sat on it firmly.  It helped that he no longer had a pulse to beat faster, no working glands to poison him with adrenaline.

 

Zudarra's mind raced as Saraven came near, steeling the muscles of her face to hide her alarm.  An ear twitched back.  No one invaded the personal bubble of Zudarra the Bloody; if she moved toward them, they got out of the way.  No one had friendly words for her.  No one sat beside her in companionable closeness.  The tickle of her fur where it brushed against his shoulder recalled the warmth of his hand on her head.  Zudarra's breast surged with the same alien emotion, warm and golden, while moth wings fluttered in her belly.

 

His scent was contentious, needling; It was comforting, familiar.  He was friend and foe in one person and as confusing as he'd ever been to Zudarra.  She swallowed uneasily, watching his face from the side.

 

“You did what you had to do,” he said.  “Each of us tried to choose for the other.  You chose the way that ended in survival.  I can't say you were more wrong than I was.”  It still wrung his guts that he had had to leave the people in the cells behind, but sometimes there was no good answer.  That was one of the things progressing age taught that youth would refuse to learn.  

 

The muscles of his shoulders and neck relaxed slowly as he sat there.  It was different, to just be physically near someone without the pressure of sex, without the threat of violence.  He grieved that the second was now partly lost to him.  For all its horrors, the last moments of his mortal life had been some of the happiest he had known.

 

“I wish I hadn't done it,” she said thickly, looking away from him, down at her hands, resisting the sudden urge to lean closer.  They were cold, they were dead, there was no comfort to be had from him or anyone.  “I've killed plenty of people in my life.  Killing you shouldn't have been any different, and you _wanted_ it, even.  And now– I don't know if you'll ever be with your family again, being what you are-”  She stopped suddenly, fearfully, realizing she may have trespassed into forbidden territory.

 

“Zudarra,” he sighed.  “My family were lost to me when I turned to the service of Meridia.  They are in Aetherius, and I would have gone to the Colored Rooms, to be hers forever.  By the time I thought of that it had been too long for me to regret it.  They died without ever being exposed to the things I have seen since.  My Velaru would not know me.  Dorova was so young that he probably does not remember me.  If I went to that place they would not be reunited with the mer that they knew, because that mer died with them.  What you did has not changed that.”  He sounded resigned, weary, more like the mer she had met first.  It was something he had had time to think over and accept over the course of long years.

 

“It was not you that separated me from them.  That happened a long time ago.”

 

 _So it was a wife and child after all._  Her heart sank with the knowledge.  His words brought her no relief, and Zudarra found herself instead feeling.. was it angry? that he would be so resigned to his lonely eternity in exchange for revenge against an enemy he could never really conquer.

 

“Are you– I mean, _were_ you happy in the years before we met?  Did you enjoy life as it was?” she asked aggressively, facing him fully this time, searching his tired eyes.

 

Saraven faced her, shaking his head slowly.  “Of course not.  Haven't I told you that what happens to me doesn't matter?  The reason I lived on those thirty years was not that I hated vampires.  I did, for a long time, but that would not have been enough.  It was to try to save families like mine.  By the time we met, even that was starting to wear thin.  I usually came along after the disaster had already happened.  The gates opening was something new.  This one might be stopped.”

 

He faced forward again, arms on his knees.  “My mind was finally going, I think.  Making me see things that were past.  That's stopped,” he said.  “If it wasn't for the thirst my mind would finally be clear.  So that's something.”

 

“What point is there in living that kind of life?” she asked harshly, lips curling as if the very idea was bitter on her tongue.  “Would Velaru have wanted this joyless existence for you?  You've done your share, you've saved countless lives, but it's time to start living for yourself.  You might think I'm young and stupid, and maybe I am.  Maybe I haven't lived through the grief you have-”  She faltered and appeared to be flustered for a moment before continuing her lecture.  “Well, it was too long ago for me to remember or care.  But you act so resigned to your fate, as if you are walking dead when you aren't, as if this noble suffering is the only thing that could ever be in store for you.  It isn't.”

 

Her spiel ended with Zudarra still glaring at his eyes.  Her claws had sprung out as they often did in irritation, but she had not clenched her fists or shown any other signs of hostility.  She didn't even know why she was so worked up over it.  It was Saraven's own life, and she knew his values were different from hers.  But being good and living a fulfilling life did not seem mutually exclusive to her.  

 

Saraven turned in surprise at a piece of new information, and then stopped, eyes on her eyes, as the rest of it sank in.  An electric jolt shot up his spine – _claws out, defend yourself while you still can_ – but he was able to quell it with no more than a tremor of his upper lips, a flaring of the nostrils.

 

He had forborn to consider what Velaru would want.  That had been too painful at first, and later had seemed irrelevant.  The dead were dead.  He hoped always that she never thought of him.

 

_But she would.  You wish to think otherwise, but that is doing her a disservice._

 

“What happened to you?” he said.  “You never did say how you came to be adopted by an Imperial.”

 

Zudarra's shoulders lowered as she visibly relaxed, now that her piece was said, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.  She leaned her shoulder against the wall, still facing him.

 

“Lavinia seems like such a nice, harmless old lady, doesn't she?  She killed my real parents when I was very small.”  The Khajiit seemed totally indifferent to this fact, yet slightly amused to watch his reaction to it.

 

Saraven lifted an eyebrow, but she was obviously baiting him.

 

“How'd that come about?” he asked.  “With the sword on the wall in her house I assumed she was a legionnaire or something.”

 

“Ha!  No.  She was a highwayman for a very long time.  She says she gave it up to be a better example to me, but the truth of it is that her vision was going and she had no choice.  Cataracts, and the healers said it'll get worse until she's totally blind.  Anyway, my parents must have been merchants on their way to the Imperial City.  They were traveling by wagon when Ma – when Lavinia and her group ambushed them.  For whatever reason the idiots fought back and got themselves killed with little me, around three or so, hiding in the back under the canvas.  I must have heard them being killed, but it's hard to say which of my memories are real and which are fabrications that arose over time, you know?

 

“Lavinia didn't _like_ to kill people, and wouldn't have if they'd just handed over their gold.  But things happened how they did and she felt so guilty about it that she raised me herself.  I don't think I had any extended family in Cyrodiil, so maybe she thought that was better than leaving me to an orphanage.  I have to agree with that decision.”  

 

Zudarra stopped, briefly considering how callous she must sound to someone like Saraven, who cared so deeply for his family and for other people.  Shouldn't she care that the woman who raised her killed her real parents?  She didn't.  In a detached sort of way she occasionally wondered what kind of people they'd been; what their names were.  But those details really had no bearing on her life, so she couldn't seem to find the anger or the sorrow that a normal person might have felt.  The only good turn they'd done for her was to die and let her be raised by someone who wasn't weak.  

 

Thinking of the person she might have been otherwise – a gentle girl, unhardened by living among the scoundrels who taught her how to hold an axe, how to kill clean and efficiently, content to sit on her ass in a cozy shop whilst counting her gold – made her sick.

 

Saraven listened quietly, brows knit.  He supposed that explained a great deal about Zudarra, that her first memories should be of violent death and the subsequent ones of being raised by her parents' murderer.  And Lavinia had not even been able to convince Zudarra that she was at all repentant of the life she had lived or the things she had done.  Frankly it was surprising Zudarra had grown up with any ability to feel remorse or empathy at all.  All that mattered to highwaymen was gold, strength, survival; and these were the things in which Zudarra had always expressed an interest.

 

“So you grew up among bandits,” he said.  “And that's where you learned to fight?”  At least going into the Arena was a legitimate profession even if it still involved killing people for gold.  In her way she had been trying to achieve something more respectable than her adoptive mother.

 

 _Or she wanted to be famous, and famous highwaymen chiefly get tracked down and killed by the Legion,_ he thought dryly. He strongly suspected that was the real answer.

 

Zudarra nodded.

 

“Yes, although Lavinia tried to insulate me from the worst of them, and she never allowed me to see her working or to participate myself until I was much older.  I insisted until she gave in.  That probably gives you a poor opinion of me, to know I've robbed people, but I suppose you had no illusions about me being good to begin with.”  She spoke flippantly, as if it didn't matter what he thought.  “Ma was always fighting some inner battle with herself, always so sad about how I was being raised, but I don't think she knew how to escape that life or do anything differently until fate forced her hand.  I started making gold in the arena, helped her to buy that house along with what she'd saved.  She’s been a different person since we left.”

 

Zudarra's throat was starting to feel sore.  It was the most talking she'd done with another person in quite a long time.

 

“To begin with I only cared that you were a vampire,” he said bluntly.  “I felt sorry for Vandalion, but then everything went to hell before I found you again, and you know how that turned out.  Then things just sort of happened one after the other, and.”  He shrugged.  “I saw you trying, and I had to respect that even if it didn't fit what I've always believed.”

 

He turned to look over at the two thralls, sleeping peacefully with the Nord spooning the Bosmer, and sighed.  He would have killed himself before willingly agreeing to the necessity of keeping another person around as a food source.  But hateful necessity was not a novel thing in his life.  Wasn't it really a matter of degree, when you got right down to it?

 

 _Hateful necessity is not what Velaru would have wanted for you, either._  He acknowledged it silently, with resignation.  But what was he to do about that now?  Already he was growing accustomed to being stronger, faster, without the creaks and pains of middle age, without his own mind playing tricks on him.  He could not pretend that he missed the weakness of his mortal flesh.

 

Zudarra laughed at the absurdity of his compliment, a short bark of a sound. _Trying at what?_ she wondered, following his gaze to the thralls, and again considered what sort of price Saraven must be paying for his.  Gears seemed to be turning when she looked upon his face again.

 

“I can't say my opinion of you has changed much since our first meeting,” she said, smiling.  “I had you pegged as a rigid goody-goody, and still think so.  But you've stuck to your principals the entire time I've known you.  You've fought hard for them.  I'll take that over the hypocritical asses who are all talk any day.  You're all right, Saraven.”  She had relaxed quite a bit more, claws sheathing themselves as one palm rested comfortably on her knee, the other in her lap.

 

“Thanks,” he said, smiling very slightly.  “You, too.”  The claws were in, anyway.  That stopped the persistent alarms going off in his back-brain.  He risked bumping the side of her knee with the back of his hand, once.  Zudarra's stomach flipped when Saraven touched her, but for once she allowed herself to enjoy the sense of companionship rather than trying to push it away.  She was too exhausted to fight with herself, and she was glad that he actually seemed to be in a good mood despite the heavy topics they'd discussed.

 

Saraven got up then to walk about the cave slowly, listening to the rain.  Keeping his feet quiet on the dirt floor was a disciplinary exercise that absorbed some of his attention, at least; one ought not wake the two mortals if it could be helped.

 

The mail link seemed to be helping.  He might need something stronger the next time he fed.  He couldn't depend on Brithe to protest while she was either entranced or in the state of mind in which he had found her.  Maybe if he started out with that hand closed, so that he could still feel it from the beginning, it would stop him from going into that lustful trance from which he had not yet been able to voluntarily extract himself.

 

The night wore on.  He tried sleeping at last, and it was a strange experience; he sat down with his back to the wall and told himself, _I will wake up when the sun rises_ , and knew nothing until his eyes suddenly opened on a shaft of light rolling across the floor in front of him.  Saraven put his hand into the sunbeam and then jerked it out again as he felt the sting.  It was like touching a hot stovetop.

 

His gums itched again.  He looked around for the thralls.  Brithe still seemed to be heavily asleep, still curled around Galmir like an octopus.

 

Zudarra dozed lightly herself, always at the cusp of awareness, listening to the howling of the wind against the flimsy door and the gentle patter of rain as the storm slowly receded.  She found it soothing.  Hunger eventually roused her from her torpor, and she winced at the sunlight that crawled menacingly through the cracks in the door.  Saraven was awake already.  He would feel the hunger as well – worse than her, his last meal had been mortal while she feasted on dremora.

 

It was time once again for the uncomfortable truths to be spoken.  

 

“You will feed first,” Zudarra said firmly.  “I'll be here, watching.”

 

“Yes,” he said grimly.  He walked over to kneel on the floor beside the Nord, reaching out to shake her shoulder gently.  “Brithe, wake up.”

 

“Hmn?”  She yawned hugely, squinting at the back of the Bosmer's head, then rolled over under the blanket to blink sleepily up at Saraven.

 

“It's time again,” he said.  Saraven leaned down to nudge his hand under her back and scoop her into a sitting position.  

 

_Count the seconds.  At ten I let go._

 

She held out her arms obediently, trusting and calm in a way that twinged at his gut with guilt, and he wrapped his arms around her and fastened his fangs into her neck, enclosing her mind in euphoric calm.   _One._  He remembered to close his left fist against her back in the moment before the blood hit his tongue, and then pleasure exploded through his body.   _Two._  He made a sound that would have humiliated him if he could think at all, a guttural moan.   _Three._  His fingers tightened convulsively, and then the pain interrupted his mounting frenzy as the hidden link stabbed his hand.   _Four,_ he remembered.   _No, six now, I lost... lost..._ He snarled as ecstasy threatened to obliterate his control.  Brithe shuddered and gasped into his shoulder, arms squeezing him so tightly that if he had been alive he would not have been able to breathe.  

 

 _Eight, damn it.  Nine.  NOW._  He clenched his fist and jerked his mouth away.  

 

“Ten,” he hissed, eyes wide and half-mad as he briefly met Zudarra's eyes past the Nord's shoulder.  She’d been staring hungrily, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood on the air.  Zudarra had to check herself from stepping toward him prematurely, beat down the urge to steal his thrall from his hands.   _No.  She is not mine.  I will feed next._

 

Pulling away was the hardest thing Saraven had ever done, coitus interruptus and a sore tooth rolled into one, but Brithe was conscious, a fervid spot of color in each white cheek as she looked at him with wide, dilated eyes.  He looked away from the other vampire quickly.  

 

“Good,” he said, loosening his grip.  He healed Brithe with a brief gesture.  “Eat.”  He dragged the saddlebags closer and got up to pace to the other side of the cave, to lean his head against the wall and try to think of literally anything but blood.  Brithe scooted to the end of the bedroll, away from Galmir, and reached out to dig for the food and water, still breathing heavily.

 

Zudarra fully expected that she would have to separate Saraven from his thrall, but he’d pulled away on his own relatively quickly.  Her smoldering eyes followed him as he moved away, fighting back the rage and the jealousy.  She would have liked to blame the beast within for those emotions, but Zudarra knew that it was all her original personality.  He had mastered self-restraint on his third day; he was superior to her in that regard.

 

His face did not speak of superiority.  His face spoke of torture.

 

“You did very well,” Zudarra said, stomping down her unhelpful emotions, trying to appear kind.  “It will get even easier.”

 

Zudarra actually said something reassuring?  Whatever the change had done to him, it seemed to have brought out the best in her.  That was worth something, wasn't it?  Last night had been the longest conversation they'd ever had.

 

_Is that because she feels guilty or because she only sees another vampire as an equal?_

 

_Ha.  Vampires don't see anyone as an equal, least of all each other.  You know that, or you wouldn't constantly be talking yourself out of attacking her._

 

“Galmir, get up,” she said to her thrall’s back.

 

Galmir was already awake, the withdrawal of Brithe's warm embrace having roused him.  His eyes had slowly cracked open to a dank and dreary mine, animal bones scattered on the floor a few feet away from his nose.  There had been a sharp pang of grief when he remembered that his last thought before he fell asleep was an impossibility.  Rational thought surged through the fog and for a moment he knew what he was: food.  He’d pressed his face into the bedroll so that the others could not see his eyes screwing shut as he listened to Saraven feed on his bed-mate.  Galmir knew that he was next and didn't care at all.  Let the stupor come.

 

But he obeyed when Zudarra spoke, pushing himself up with his palms, keeping his eyes downcast to hide the redness that must surely be there.  Zudarra could feel his sorrow as she kneeled beside him on the other side of their joined beds.  He obediently held his head to the side for her easy access and his pain was extinguished before she even touched him.

 

Zudarra didn't take much, only what she absolutely needed to weather the sun.  He was small, and it was better to save his strength for after the next gate.  It was hard.  But if Saraven could show restraint, then damn it, so could she.  Her mouth popped free with an unnecessary gasp and she stared greedily at his wound for an eternity, droplets leaking with every throb of the big artery, but finally rose to her feet and let her healing magic go.  Galmir smiled stupidly up at her as the magicka caressed his neck, once again lost in the peaceful, thoughtless calm.  He couldn't even remember what had troubled him a moment before.

 

“Eat now, Galmir,” she said stiffly.  Brithe patted Galmir familiarly as she ate, offering him a tidbit of dried apricot.  He seemed like a nice elf, she decided through the glow of gentle bemusement.  “And Saraven, my armor?  Please.”  It would give him something to do, something else to focus on, and they could leave as soon as the others finished their breakfast.

 

“Armor.  Yes,” he said, and turned, shaking his head to try to clear it as he moved to help her put on the adamantium.  He could scent Galmir's blood on her, and fought down the urge to be smug that his thrall was bigger and stronger.  Any undead creature that could live to be ancient must spend a lot of time fighting down the stupid instincts of a fledgling.  Or maybe they went away over the years.  He could hope.

 

...Years?  Was he really resigned to letting this go on after the gates were closed?

 

_I have become the thing I hate most!_

 

_You don't hate Zudarra.  You accepted the necessity of Brithe awfully quickly._

 

_Shut up.  Shut up.  Shut up._

 

He calmed slowly as he put the armor together, a task that required enough concentration to gradually quell the confusion.

 

* * *

 

Everyone fed and properly attired, Zudarra was glad to get underway.  The poor horses had been soaked even under the dense forest canopy, and although they didn't seem to mind at all, were given brushings and pears as a consolation.  Galmir laughed at the gentle tickle of Elwaen's rubbery lips as they gathered the fruit from the flat of his palm, leaving behind a gob of horse slobber that he wiped on his pant leg.  He gave a pear to Brithe, urging her to try it, too.

 

Brithe accepted a pear cheerfully, laughing at Galmir and the horse.  It was a little mealy, but it was sweet, and she enjoyed it.  The taste seemed even more vivid after she had fed Saraven.  Probably because of the blood loss.  She accepted that philosophically – it was worth it to be rid of the pain.

 

She rode behind Saraven, arms around his mailed waist, and tried not to mourn in her heart for Glarius, who had been bigger and broader and so strong, always reliable.  And warm.  The vampire leeched heat from her body rather than providing more.

 

The world was wet and misty again but it cleared as the sun rose and turned into another pleasantly warm day.  Zudarra rode with the others, occasionally remarking on the landmarks they passed.  Several hours after their noon lunch break, they noticed a mass of shapes on the horizon down road.  As they grew near they could see what appeared to be a platoon of armored warriors, moving away from them.  Hoots and hollers rose above a strange parody of a military drum beat, the clanking of a ladle against a cast iron lid.  It soon became apparent that the troops marched with absolutely no formation, and that their armor was nothing conventional.  From a distance, the pots and pans strapped to some of them had looked like gray armor as they glinted in the sunlight.

 

Saraven frowned as they approached the motley crowd.  There were about thirty travelers of various species, and all seemed oblivious to the horses clopping up behind them.  Zudarra shot Saraven a questioning look.  He shrugged minutely in response, then raised his voice.

 

“Excuse me!”

 

Some of the people turned to look at them, but most were too absorbed in their singing and banging and general idiocy to notice the voice of the newcomer.

 

A young-looking Dunmer woman turned and waved cheerfully to them.  Her long red hair was a cascade of elaborate interwoven braids, an assortment of wildflowers stuck between the plaits.  She allowed herself to drop back from the crowd to walk backward in front of their horses.  Flat, dingy pillows that looked to have been outside for a while were strapped to her chest and to her arms with twine.  Beneath was a burgundy robe that was torn at the knees, and which also appeared to have spent some time in the elements.  She was barefoot and carrying a garden hoe.

 

“Hello!” she said enthusiastically, looking at all of them in turn.  Galmir smiled vacantly and waved back.  “It's a lovely day for going to war, is it not?”

 

“What?” Zudarra said stupidly, still looking back and forth between the woman and Saraven as if he could offer some explanation.

 

“Yes, you know, the daedra are attacking Tamriel!  Haven't you heard?”  The Dunmer laid a hand on her chest and tilted her head to the side, regarding Zudarra with a deeply sympathetic expression that the poor, stupid dear was so dreadfully unaware.  

 

Another face in the crowd turned to look at them and fell back alongside the Dunmer.  He was an  Imperial of middle age, thin and flabby all at once, splendidly arrayed in a full suit of makeshift armor.  Every inch of him seemed to be covered with some form of cookware; even his joints were protected by spoons.  He saluted them smartly, hand banging against his helmet-pot.  A long brass candlestick was wedged under his belt, which he constantly had to hold to keep from slipping out.  He was wearing leather boots, but had no clothes on underneath all of this aside from a loincloth wrap.  Zudarra cringed and looked back at his eyes.

 

“Commander Decanius, at your service!  We've been tasked with a quest of utmost importance on behalf of our Lord Sheogorath.  I'll permit you to travel with us as long as you stay out of the way.”

 

“He sent you to close the gate in Bravil?” Zudarra asked carefully.

 

The Dunmer burst out laughing and Decanius glared at her.  Apparently their quest was very grave, no laughing matter.

 

“No,” he said slowly, as if to be sure her thick mind would grasp what he was saying.  “We are tasked with retrieving the eye of a clannfear.  It is considered a delicacy in other worlds, and will be lovely in a casserole.”

 

 _Sheogorites._  Saraven squinted for a second before his usual expression of weary gravity reasserted itself.  It was completely likely these people would walk into the gate and be slaughtered or captured en masse, but with worshippers of the Mad God you couldn't be completely sure.  Sheogorath had his own sense of humor and it was not always predictable whether he was in an “all of you get killed because you're poorly armed idiots” mood or a “bunch of dremora get slaughtered by crazies with garden tools” mood, or even an “everyone on both sides turns into butterflies, spends three days in an orgy of mating and egg-laying, and then dies of old age” mood.  Usually something awful was about to happen to someone.  Completely harmless manifestations of the Mad God were not impossible, but they were not common.

 

“Thank you, Commander Decanius,” he said now.  “We won't interfere with your culinary mission, we promise.  We just want to get in and close the gate.”

 

“Do as you must, Sir!” Decanius said, saluting again before whirling around to take his place at the front of the group.  He marched in an exaggerated fashion and the crowd parted around him to avoid the flailing arms.  The Dunmer turned away from them as well, chatting happily with one of her comrades.  Zudarra caught a snippet of the conversation – she was wondering aloud if the dremora would offer them any tea before battle.

 

A pink and gray-splotched Argonian wearing a crown of flax flowers and a ragged dress that appeared to be made from a large flour sack was walking alongside his horse.  She was scrawny and her hands and feet looked a bit big for her – she might be a teenager.  At present she was offering a small blossom to Brithe.  Brithe leaned down to take it cheerfully and stuck it behind her ear.  The Argonian smiled, showing all her sharp teeth, and jogged back up to lose herself in the throng.  She was carrying an axe in her other hand.

 

“You're content to let them walk to their own slaughter?” Zudarra asked incredulously, eyeing Saraven sideways.  She regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth.  There was no way for them to stop a crowd this big from doing what they wanted to do, and she didn't need Saraven having some sort of moral crisis if he couldn't save them.

 

“Sheogorites,” he said, lifting one shoulder.  “Even if we could stop them, be a bad idea to try.  They may not be what they seem.”  He didn't like the idea of just letting all of them walk into a gate to the Deadlands and die, but he suspected that was not all that would happen.  

 

They knew when they were approaching the city because the sky overhead turned red, swirling with black clouds.  Not long after, they topped a small rise, and the high, sharp spines of the gate came into view in the distance.  The parapets of the city of Bravil looked small through the crimson membrane, the glittering water of Topal Bay sprawling out behind it.  A camp stood around the gate, neat rows of the yurt-like flesh tents, and a crude wall of nailed boards had been erected on the side facing the city.  The wooden bridge that had connected Bravil's upper gate with the cliff shore was gone.

 

They must've cut it when the gate opened, or soon after.  They had undoubtedly sacrificed the lives of the two guards normally posted on the cliff side but saved many lives within the city in the process.  He reigned up, looking grimly at Zudarra.

 

“Leave the horses up here with Galmir and Brithe, run as fast as we can for the gate?” he said.

 

She nodded, and raised a hand indicating Galmir should halt behind them.

 

“Now that we can both become invisible, it shouldn't be hard to get past the welcoming committee that's most likely waiting just inside.”  She lifted herself in the stirrups and clanked to the ground, leading Shadow to the side of the road.  They had left the Sheogorites and their din behind them on the road.  While it might be amusing to watch unfold what may, Zudarra hoped they'd have the gate closed by the time the Mad God's worshippers arrived.

 

“Galmir, we're going in.  Take care of the horses and don't talk to that rabble when they catch up.  Saraven, wait to hide yourself until we're almost there.  The spell won't last long, and we have to get inside the tower before it wears off.”

 

“Stay here with Galmir,” Saraven told Brithe.  “Defend yourself if anyone bothers you.  If we don't come back, take the gold from the saddlebags and ride to Anvil.  There's a surviving Guild there.”  She nodded dreamily, and then he turned and saw Zudarra already sprinting away.  He turned to run after her as fast as he could, visible only as a trail of little puffs of dust.  She had not told him how to use the spell.  He tried drawing on the power that he knew he had, willing himself to vanish.  His hands, darting forward and back as he ran, faded from view, and then he was sprinting through the fringes of the dremora camp, individual soldiers looking around for the source of the noise but too late to see him pass.  He plunged into the membrane a fraction of a second after Zudarra.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Her paws hit dry, dusty ground and Zudarra almost slammed into a dremora as momentum propelled her forward.  Several of them were milling around the gate with their weapons sheathed, not paying very close attention.  Zudarra would say they looked irritated and bored, but scowls seemed to be the resting expression of dremora to begin with.  The fire hummed and flared brighter as she passed through and one of them looked her way, but Zudarra darted aside through an opening in the crowd and was gone.  She thought she could smell Saraven, but with no heartbeat or any way to signal each other she could only hope that he'd made it through.

 

There were no lava oceans here that Zudarra could see.  Instead the terrain was rocky and mountainous, crawling with the shifting red vines.  The portal stood on a flat, daedra-made shelf with steps carved into the red rock and below it a winding trail cut through the mountain, wide enough to admit two dremora side by side.  Jagged rocks jutted up on either side of the trail, obscuring the landscape beyond.  The trail sloped steadily upward and Zudarra could see a solitary tower rising before them, a black silhouette of wicked pincers and spikes against roiling crimson clouds.  It would be several minutes away, too far for any hope of reaching the door still invisible.

 

The trail twisted haphazardously and Zudarra crouched down at a bend to wait for Saraven after her nose appeared in front of her face.  Vines had rustled at her as she passed, but Zudarra always kept out of their reach.  The trail stunk of scamp and clannfear, but she'd seen no sign of them yet.

 

* * *

 

Saraven stepped out of the swirling vortex and onto dry ground, heat striking him in the face with an almost physical impact.  He was surrounded by dremora, but he could not say that his heart skipped a beat; the absence of that very visceral reaction was shocking in itself and he faltered for a second.  He realized after another that they could not see him; some were staring off up the trail suspiciously in the direction Zudarra had undoubtedly taken.  Saraven started off that way as quietly as he could, but without waste of time – he knew that the invisibility would not last.  He shot around a bend, fingers of fat red vine grasping after him fruitlessly, and skidded to a halt as he realized his hands were fading into view in front of him.  Zudarra crouched up ahead, squatting by the path.  He jerked his chin up as he approached.  They were yet some minutes from the base of the tower, gray and yellow blooms swaying in the hot breeze to either side of the trail up ahead.

 

“Hopefully we won't have many to deal with if they're all guarding the gate,” Zudarra said when Saraven came up next to her.

 

“I wonder if they were trying to ambush us again or if they were just trying something new,” he muttered.  She stood and slung the axe off her back, holding it close to her body as they walked along the path.  It was eerily quiet, the only sound a slight rustling of the vines rubbing against themselves.

 

High-pitched alien voices drew Zudarra's attention.  She paused, eyeing the bend in the trail ahead of them.  Saraven lifted his head.  It was a moment after that he heard them, his ears less keen than hers.

 

“Something's coming,” she whispered, raising her axe.  No sooner had she spoken than a gaggle of scamps came bouncing around the corner, two in front with a third behind, chittering their strange sounds that might have been language.  They froze for the briefest moment when they saw the intruders and then one was bounding toward them and the other two were lobbing fire down the slope.

 

Saraven loosed a lightning bolt at the scamp that ran toward them, then spun aside to avoid a ball of fire.  It impacted on the path behind him, and he felt the heat on his back as he heard the loud WHOMPH on impact.  The creature convulsed as the lightning engulfed its body.  He did not wait to see its dying convulsions as he sprinted up-slope toward the other two, drawing his longsword.

–

Zudarra sidestepped another fireball, pressing herself against the rocky wall that enclosed the trail.  Red vines slapped against her armor, sliding harmlessly away when they found no flesh to hook their pointed tips into.  As the heat of the blast whirled past her face she spun from the wall and dashed after Saraven.  

 

The scamp on her side backpedaled as he loosed another blast of fire and Zudarra sprang into the air to avoid it, swinging her battle axe back over her head to slam down on the creature.  Its beady red eyes shot open in fear and it turned to flee, too slowly.  Blade thwacked against skull as Zudarra came down, burying her axe in the side of the scamp's turned head.  It couldn't even screech before it was dead.

 

Saraven's scamp was more bold, or perhaps stupid, running at the mer with fire blazing in both hands.  It released them both at once, sending twin fireballs hurtling to either side of him.  It grinned and chattered as it ran, baring long and thin yellow teeth.

 

The Dunmer hurled himself forward in a low roll, both fireballs slashing past over his head with a roar that seemed deafening from so close.  Hard ground against his shoulder, his back, and then he was up and his momentum carried him forward to impale the scamp on his longsword.  The serrated blade pierced flesh, cracked bone, and jetted out through the creature's back with a wet sklush.  It screamed in his face as he snarled back, and then it slumped, eyes going blank, and he shoved it off the blade with his foot.  The smell of its blood tormented him, it was alluring and intoxicating and the thing was already dead, there was nothing for him there.  The sound in his throat was not a noise a mer should make as he turned to look for Zudarra.

 

 _Strength._  She had split the other one's skull.  There would be no fight over who fed.  He shook his head violently, clenching his empty left fist; the pain dragged him back to the vestiges of his sanity as he turned to start up the path again.

 

Zudarra's ear twitched toward the sound Saraven had made but she did not turn to look at him.  She understood well enough what he must be going through.  She yanked her axe from the daedra's head and flicked blood from it, vibrant crimson spattering dull red stone.  The blood gushing from the mangled head was a terrible loss that made her stomach clench with need, but Zudarra was glad she didn't have to live with herself after putting her lips to a scamp's leathery hide.  

 

Saraven walked under the red sky, fist clenched as he continued to work himself back toward sanity.  Thank the gods Zudarra was there, with senses more advanced than his in every way, with the ability to keep her head through all of it.  He had never given her enough credit.

 

It didn't take much longer for them to reach the end of the trail, emerging on the top of the mountain right by the base of the tower.  It was relatively flat, as if the dremora had carved out an area for their tower to be built, and looking down they could finally see the ocean of lava that surrounded the little island.  The sky seemed far too close here, and Zudarra felt that she could reach up through the red mist and pluck a star from the tarry sky.  

 

Saraven stood by with blade at the ready as Zudarra pried open the arched tower doors.  Before the jagged, interlocking teeth had even fully parted a mottled red and black face glowered at them from the cracks.  The doors yanked open and a serrated shortsword struck out, banging against the side of her helm.  The resounding clang in her ears was deafening and Zudarra stumbled to the side.  Saraven lunged forward, jabbing at the dremora's throat with his longsword.  The creature jerked backward, and Saraven turned sideways to slip inside and then immediately dodged to his right to avoid an attempt to decapitate him.

 

“So you have come to us after all,” the dremora said in Common, grinning.  He turned in a circle to keep track of Saraven as the Dunmer stalked around him narrow-eyed.  “Your torment will be eternal.”

 

“Could be,” Saraven said.  The dremora's back was to the door.

 

The ringing in her ears might never end.  Zudarra shook herself to stop the world tilting and staggered upright to see the dremora's back through the shrinking opening as the doors crawled shut.  Anger and thirst boiled within and a low growl rumbled from her chest.  She lurched through the doorway, shoving at the jagged door with her left arm as she swung for the back of the dremora's skull one-handed.

 

The daedra was opening his mouth to make another taunting retort when Saraven saw Zudarra rise up behind him like an avenging angel, and the flat of her axe smote him full in the back of the skull.  He dropped as his eyes rolled upward.  Saraven snarled, teeth bared – _mine, mine!_ \- and turned sharply away.  It was hers.  Let her have it.

 

Zudarra caught the dremora as he crumpled and hissed at the other vampire even as he backed down, long fangs glistening wetly before she descended on the helpless daedra.  She was vaguely aware of their acting like wild animals but could not bring herself to care as liquid ecstasy rushed down her throat. _I could share,_ Zudarra thought, but she dismissed the idea as soon as it had come to her. _  
_ _This one is mine.  He’ll get his own!_  She watched Saraven from the corner of her rolled eyes as she fed, as wary as she could be in that state.  His presence was a series of tiny needling pinpricks behind the waves of pleasure.

 

When the corpse was a bloodless husk she let it fall, crimson eyes searching wildly about her for the next.  But there were no other beating hearts to fuel her bloodlust, only Saraven, and her fervor slowly calmed as she wiped blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.  She was still holding her axe loosely by the end of the hilt.  She jerked it up to grasp with both hands and wordlessly headed for one of the doors that she thought may lead up, on the other side of the well of fire that the humming spire shot out from.

 

A familiar upward-leading ramp lay behind the door and the vampires ascended.  There were no dremora in the next room, or the next.  They met a stray scamp and another dremora alone on the ramp and dealt with them by neatly tossing them over the side rail.  The lack of much opposition gave Zudarra plenty of time to grow disgusted with herself.  When she was alone it had been easier to control her wild urges.  With Saraven around, both of them were reduced to snarling wolves in their weaker moments.

 

 _When Dagon is defeated Saraven and I will have no more reason to fight as comrades.  Or the daedra will overrun Tamriel and we'll all be dead and it won't matter.  Either way, this won't go on forever._  The thought was meant to console her but instead elicited a sharp pang of heartache.  She glanced briefly aside at the mer, wondering why she could not fathom being without him.  She was not so weak that she required companionship.  Never had been, and Molag Bal take her if she ever was.

 

Saraven squashed his earlier resentment with increasing ease, gradually more able to tell what was himself and what was vampiric urges.  He went up the tower beside Zudarra without having to scramble to try to match her lowest speed, without his legs screaming at him from the first ten minutes, and he gradually began to come to the realization that he liked it.  He did not miss constantly having to work around the possibility that his body would fail him from sheer mortal incapacity.  Even less did he miss the conflict between Zudarra as comrade and Zudarra as someone who constantly had to fight the urge to pounce on him and devour him.  

 

And for the first time he could not hate himself.  It was not unnatural to wish to walk beside your friend as an equal, not as baggage and potential prey.  And this time he did use the word friend to himself unabashedly.  There was no retreating from the last conscious moments of his mortal life, the moments of truth.  

 

But Zudarra seemed unhappy.  She was less exultant in her strength than he had sometimes known her, brooding inside her adamantium helmet.  She looked at him in a way he could not read, less aggressive or calculating than he had been wont to expect.

 

They were fast approaching the membranous ceiling that stretched across the tower top.

 

“Child's play,” Zudarra said, the drone of the pillar masking her voice to all but Saraven.  “I'll stay below and create a slow-moving target for them.  You run for the stone?”  

 

He grunted agreement at her assessment, then nodded.  It was his turn to make the run anyway, and in light armor he would move faster than a dremora could visually track, let alone hit with a spell -

 

A grinding noise pulled their attention to a level below them on the ramp.  A door had opened and a figure unlike anything either had seen stepped out.  It was obviously not a dremora; its gray skin and long, backwards-sweeping horns had to belong to some other race.  He was large and brutish, thick veins standing out all across his heavily muscled body.  He had shaggy black hair that ended just below his pointed ears, and did not wear much- his clothing seemed ceremonial in nature, a red skirt and a sash across his bare chest.  Some type of heavily ornamental metal necklace, all jagged points and wicked spikes, lay draped across his broad shoulders.  All four of the creature's trunk-like limbs were heavily tattooed with twisting shapes that could have been purely decorative as easily as they might be letters, all of it glowing unnatural crimson. He looked up at them immediately, heavy brows drawing together over deep-set, white eyes that glowed as vibrantly as his markings.  

 

He snarled and pointed a long-clawed finger at them.  Zudarra thought the gesture to be some sort of challenge but then white lightning was crackling through the air.  She jumped sideways without thinking and sprinted down the ramp.  Saraven dodged aside from the lightning as well, sprinting after her on the opposite side of the hall.  He dared not make his run and leave her down here.  The ceiling of the narrower passage might crush her before she was transported away.

 

The gray-skinned daedra turned to face the advancing vampires, heavy features twisting into an unimpressed scowl in spite of their superior speed.  He opened his claws and purple light flashed out to form a protective shell around his body.  Zudarra was in front of him now, snarling as she threw her weight into an overhand swing toward his unprotected neck.  The blade slowed as it passed through magicka and the daedra knocked his own meaty forearm against the hilt of the axe, sending Zudarra stumbling off-balance beside him.

 

Saraven skidded on his knees past the creature's left thigh, slashing at his unprotected femoral with the longsword.  It, too, was slowed by the shield, leaving hardly a mark as he passed, and then he was on his feet and attempting to jab upward under the gray daedra's arm.

 

Zudarra spun around to slash again as she regained her footing.  The daedra caught the haft of her axe with his bare hand just as Saraven's blade pierced his flesh.  He bellowed in pain, a deeply resonate roar that shook the air and smacked the Dunmer with a tree-trunk arm. Saraven was flung back against a wall with a bruising blow that knocked the air from his lungs.  He landed hard on his knees, but he kept his grip on the longsword, did not even see stars.  He didn't need to breathe any more, he recognized.

 

Zudarra twisted her weapon away from the daedra’s hand and thrust upward, slamming the pointed tip at the top of her battle axe into his jaw from below.   The spike pierced flesh and scraped bone before the daedra jerked his head up and stumbled back toward the door he had come from, slamming against it with a meaty thwack and a jangle of his metal necklace.  He groaned, black-red blood pouring down his throat, throwing his arms up in front of himself for protection.

 

Saraven scrambled to his feet as he saw the gray daedra run into the door.  He sprinted toward them, picking up speed, and then ran straight up the wall to backflip off, gaining him enough height to slash at the daedra's carotid as he passed.

 

Blood splurted from the slashed neck and the daedra lashed out wildly at his attackers, roaring furiously all the while, but all Zudarra had to do was jump back out of his reach and watch as he quickly lost steam and collapsed onto his face.  The ramp trembled beneath her paws as his heavy body hit the floor and Zudarra watched a pool of blood flow out from underneath him.  

 

Saraven landed on his feet, then spun, mouth frozen in a snarl.  The fragrance of daedric blood filled his nostrils, blotting out everything else.  She would not have this one damn it -

 

But the creature was already dead, his heart no longer beating.  Zudarra’s mouth hung open as she stared, transfixed.  The loss, the thirst, it was nearly painful.  The roar of fire snapped both vampires back to the present, though Saraven was unable to stop the growl in his throat.

 

A fireball whomphed against Zudarra’s back, pain flaring at her armpits and neck where the fire reached its fingers through the gaps in her armor.  She jerked around to see a mage standing at the top of the ramp behind them, having been drawn by the sound of the strange daedra's roar.  

 

“Get the the stone and don't stop, I'll take him!” she bellowed.  Zudarra sprinted for the dremora with her head ducked behind her shoulder and battle axe raised, an adamantium juggernaut bearing down on the dremora faster than a stone from a sling.  

 

“Right!”  Saraven sprinted forward, diving into a roll to avoid another fireball that exploded against a wall behind him.  He wanted to stop and seize on the dremora, drain him dry, he ached for it.  Even his clenched left fist only made the pain greater, it barely distracted from his lust for blood.  But it was enough.  It kept his feet moving past the dremora and up to the doorway into the sigil room.  

 

After missing Saraven the dremora threw another fireball at Zudarra’s ducked head instead.  Heat licked Zudarra’s face under the helm as she ran, singeing the tips of her fur but not much else.  Then she untucked herself to cleave the mage from shoulder to breast, a fountain of blood splattering her armor as he dropped in a heap.  She did not stop, leaping over the body to follow her ally.

 

Saraven was aware of another mage and a warrior just turning toward the noise from the corridor, but he brushed past the armored dremora without even a chance of being hit, a heavy greataxe swishing down inches behind him as he sprinted up the ramp.  The loud hum of the sigil stone and the column of fire that held it suspended filled his senses, merciful change from the sight and scent of blood.  He slid to a halt and struck at it as hard as he could with the butt of his longsword.

 

The stone flew out into space and crashed down on the floor of the sigil room below, rolling toward the hallway.  Saraven was thrown back against the wall with the impact, bouncing back onto the floor even as the structure began to shake.  The first vibration became a world-shattering roar as the ceiling overhead began to crack and fall.

 

Zudarra had only exchanged a few blows with the armored daedra when the explosive force of the destabilized pillar rocked the tower, throwing them all off their feet.  She rolled to the side to dodge a massive slab of the upper balcony that crashed into the floor beside her.  Fire and debris filled her vision and then Zudarra was falling to the scorched ground outside Bravil, smack dab into a sea of flashing blades and roaring voices.

 

 _Battle!_  There was no time to collect herself.  Zudarra rolled to her feet, battle axe still in her hands.  They were surrounded on all sides by a chaotic, churning mass of dremora and mortals of every race.   _The Sheogorites_.  Three Sheogorites swarmed a single mage, laughing maniacally as they bashed his head in with a rake, a hoe, a hammer, before flouncing off to their next target.  Zudarra spotted a dremora warrior ready to strike the young Argonian they had seen earlier from behind while she was preoccupied savagely carving up another with her axe.  Zudarra surged into the fray, knocking aside the dremora's sword.

 

She was a flurry of flashing adamantium and daedric steel as she fought, completely absorbed by the steady rhythm of battle, the clash of metal against metal and the final gratification of axe driving through flesh and bone.  A heady bouquet of daedric and mortal blood inflamed her senses, stoking her thirst and her rage.  She was lost to it, purely animal and unthinking as she tore through daedra after daedra, at times descending to feed when she could, breaking away when another struck her and pulled her back into the maelstrom.  

 

* * *

 

Saraven fell out of the white and into the noise and stink of battle.  He looked around quickly as he got to his feet – so easy, it was so easy now, his knees didn't hurt him – and then had to parry a daedric spear aimed at his chest, leaning aside to shove the shaft away as he stabbed at the cuirass seam behind it.  All around him Sheogorites with were fighting with demoniac fury, bringing down armored warriors with their makeshift weapons.  He could hear them laughing and bandying words:

 

“Got him, got him!  Have his guts for garters!”

 

“Silly man, I don't need any garters.  Give me his eye instead.”

 

“Here, but watch out for that one!”

 

“Oh, I say, you're being rather rude, Mister Dremora.”

 

“Wabble!  Gark!”

 

He had no time to listen to their mad chatter as he fought for his life.  It was easier than it had ever been.  He was faster, was stronger, was not tired; and after the first dremora that he managed to stun alive he was energized by daedric blood, the roar of Dagon in his veins.  He was aware of Zudarra not far away, fighting and feeding as he was.  It was impossible to miss the big bright suit of armor.  And while a couple of Sheogorites greeted her with frightened cries of “Oy, Jyggalag!” they quickly passed on to the daedra again when they saw her fighting.

 

Some of them even cheered the vampires on.  “Get him, get her, bite them and tear them!  Haha!  That'll teach them to sing purple for a rosebush!”

 

* * *

 

Zudarra wasn't sure how long they'd been fighting.  She only knew that the sky had been black when they emerged from the gate and now she looked up to a thin line of pink on the horizon, bleeding purple into the barrier of night and day.  Corpses lay heaped around her in every direction.  Mobs of surviving Sheogorites swarmed the last standing dremora, who were clearly outnumbered and dwindling fast; there were many more of the Sheogorites than they had met on the road earlier, Zudarra realized.  With nowhere to retreat – as if dremora ever _would_ retreat – they stubbornly clung to their weapons and faced their certain deaths with the same overconfident taunts Zudarra had heard too many times.

 

She let her axe head drop to the dirt and rested a palm on the hilt, surveying the mass of broken bodies with a sense of pride and searching for Saraven.  The Sheogorites could have the stragglers.  Zudarra wasn't about to insert herself in their way.  

 

Her chin and neck were matted with blood, and she was aware of blood seeping through her padding for the first time since the battle had begun.  That minor discomfort was nothing in the face of the intoxicating strength that trembled through her limbs.  The endless feast had left her with the godlike power Zudarra had not felt since she was first made and she reveled in the glory of it, remembering once again why she had chosen the path of a vampire.

 

A flash of red light in the corner of her eye caught Zudarra's attention and she turned to see a spiral of magicka unfolding around a massive object that loomed two stories tall above her, blotting out the light of the sunrise.  As the magickal mist faded away the gray silhouette raised a massive, bony-frilled head to the sky and threw open its beak in a piercing shriek that commanded the attention of every person on the battlefield.  Zudarra winced at the ear-splitting sound, hand automatically flying to her helm-protected ear.  This hulking monster with tree trunk-thick limbs and wicked, curved claws as long as Saraven's sword could only be a clannfear.  

 

She picked up her axe, eyes darting to the creature's massive clawed feet to search for the mage that had summoned it, but she saw none nearby.

 

* * *

 

 Saraven came to himself with a shriveled body in his hands, ecstasy fogging his mind.  He looked down and saw that it was a dremora.  That was a great relief to him as shame flooded in to crowd out the animal urge to feed and feed and feed.  He was battered beneath his chainmail.  His ribs had been broken and healed several times over as he took hits to the body in order to get hold of his prey, and now bruises remained.  It was a wonder he hadn't been decapitated.  He felt sure he must have been careless.  Probably only supernatural speed had saved him.

 

Something had attracted his attention, some noise?  Zudarra?  He looked around, letting the carcass fall as he wiped blood from his mouth.  He felt invincible, ready to explode with uncontainable power, a need greater than the sexual, almost greater than the urge to feed.  

 

There she was, a brilliant silvery thing on this battlefield of black and red and the motley dull colors of the Sheogorites.  His eyes traveled upward to the behemoth beyond her, a clannfear larger than any living creature he had ever seen.  Its giant shadow fell across the Cathay-raht and dwarfed her utterly.  He looked around quickly for his longsword.  He had dropped it beside the body on which he had been feeding – bad, that was bad, a breach of discipline.  He grabbed it up and ran toward them, challenge roaring in his throat.

 

The clannfear lumbered forward, massive talons thudding against the ground with every step.  A thundering herd of bloodied and bruised Sheogorites ran for the clannfear, makeshift weapons held high as they roared their assorted war cries.  It dropped down onto one hand to sweep the feet out from under the attackers with the other and mortals cried out as they were knocked aside.  Zudarra leapt over the scaled limb, twisting in midair to hack at the creature's arm.  The scales were thick and she barely managed a graze before she landed and danced back out of its reach, grinning at the welcome challenge.

 

Saraven sprinted between the monster's giant taloned feet, nimbly dodging the attempt to swipe him.  When the thing straightened up its tail swept downward to counterbalance it, and he leaped onto the tip and began to sprint up toward its back, feet on either side of its upthrust spikes.  Each one was nearly a foot tall and three feet long, a gnarled growth of bone so enormous as to beggar belief.  The thought that it could shake him off did not for one second occur to him.  When it twisted to make its rattling creak at him, beaked mouth open wide enough to swallow a horse without chewing, he laughed in its face.  Then he was forced to grab at one of the spines as the tail shook violently from side to side, trying to dislodge him.  One of the mighty three-clawed hands swept back to try and grab him, and he avoided it only by swinging himself to the other side of his bony handhold.  Bone scraped bone as claws met spine.

 

The Sheogorites surrounded the clannfear's feet like a tidal wave, hacking at the scales to little effect.  Saraven's world was dizzying movement as the tail swung through the air to knock the attackers aside.  Then the clannfear dropped onto all fours, bones crunching as frail mortal bodies were crushed beneath the weight of its hands.  Saraven climbed back atop the tail to continue his run toward the clannfear's back.  An unlucky Orc was scooped up in the giant maw and the clannfear tossed back its head, snapping the man in half and raining blood upon the rest.  Zudarra held up an arm to fend off the fleeing, screaming Sheogorites who raced past her, banging against her armor in their mad rush to escape.  A few still hacked away gleefully at whatever part of the clannfear they could reach, either oblivious to the danger or uncaring.  But now Zudarra had space to maneuver.

 

She sprinted straight between its forelegs while its head was up and launched herself into the air, roaring as her battle axe slammed against its chest.  The blade cut deeper than before and red blood oozed from the wound as Zudarra hit the ground, rolling quickly away out from under the feet.  The clannfear shrieked again, tossed the dead Orc from its beak and spun, trying to hit Zudarra with its tail and shake off the Dunmer in one movement.

 

Saraven couldn’t tell what, but Zudarra had done something to hurt it.  He could smell the gallons of blood and it almost made him insane, snarling and snapping at the air.  He could hear his own animal snarls and he hated himself for it, but at least he was still conscious enough to know hate.  He clenched his left fist so hard that he felt his own cold and dreadful blood running down his hand as he ran.  

 

Then the thing twisted and spun, and he slipped half-off the tail as he saw Zudarra and the ground rushing toward him.  Saraven held on by one arm, sword in the other, as he hacked at the tail, trying to hurt the thing enough to make it change direction again.

 

Zudarra's world was a tangle of spinning grey-green limbs and dark blue sky as she rolled, her own armor digging harshly against her body.  She clanked to a sudden stop staring up at a dangling Saraven and scrabbled to her feet just before the clannfear roared and spun again, yanking its tail away from the source of pain.  It was facing away from her now.  Zudarra had been too close to the feet; it couldn't see her under itself.  It screeched and took off in its slow, lumbering gait, snapping at the fleeing madmen.  Zudarra ran after it, dodging the swaying tail to run underneath and flinging her axe one-handed around an ankle to trip it up.  With its next step forward the foot yanked the axe out of her hands and Zudarra let it go to dodge aside.  She scooped a shortsword from a fallen dremora off the ground as she ran.

 

The clannfear screeched in shock as it fell with a heavy thud that shook the world, plowing jaw-first into the ground and kicking up a cloud of black soot and dirt.  

 

Saraven was thrown clear as the thing hit the ground, spinning through the air.  He tucked in his legs and his empty left arm, right hand out to one side to keep from stabbing himself on impact, and then he hit shoulder first and felt the pop of his left shoulder dislocating as he rolled over and over.  He was bruised, but his head had been protected, he was conscious and oriented.  He got to his feet, grimacing at the pain, and turned quickly to see what was happening.  The clannfear was down.  Zudarra had done it.  He ran to lance it repeatedly through the roof of its mouth, dodging each snap of its beak with his useless left arm flopping.

 

Zudarra sprinted for the head, joining Saraven to stab it again and again with the serrated sword.  The clannfear screamed in agony and tried to push itself away from them on its forearms but Zudarra stabbed its neck and chest as it rose.  Blood oozed from its many wounds, little rivers coursing around the scales of its muzzle to join the curtain of red that poured down its neck.  Its movements grew weaker and finally the clannfear shuddered and collapsed to the ground, no longer able to hold its own weight on its arms.  It groaned as their stabbing continued and then grew silent, yellow reptilian eyes rolling up in its head.  Zudarra was snarling furiously as she attacked, but now a cheer rose behind her and her movements slowed.  The thing was dead.  She yanked her blade from the roof of its mouth, bringing chunks of flesh with the teeth of her blade, and turned to see a ring of Sheogorites behind them, clapping and yelling in jubilation.  Inexplicably, a few of them were sobbing, throwing themselves on the ground and having full-on tantrums.

 

“The eyes!  The eyes!  Carve out the eyes!”

 

“But _I_ wanted the eyes!  It isn't fair...”

 

“Now I shall never get my new shoes,” one of them wailed.

 

Saraven kept a wary eye on the mad folk as he knelt to clean his sword on the weeds, rolling his shoulder to shove it back into the socket.  It met with a click as he grimaced.  Again there were no sparks in front of his eyes.  Everything about his body was different from what he knew, but he felt increasingly less unbalanced by it.  

 

Zudarra glanced from the Sheogorites to the dead clannfear, then at Saraven.  Then she laughed, a hearty belly laugh that shook her armor.  When the humor of the absurdity had passed she raised her arm to Saraven, grinning, to clasp his hand in victory.

 

He looked up at Zudarra's laugh, uncomprehending at first, then grinning reluctantly.  He stood up to take the offered arm, quelling the complaint of the vampire back-brain that felt this was obviously some sort of dominance gesture.  Zudarra clasped his hand firmly in hers before she really knew what she was doing.  She quickly released him and then sheepishly pawed the back of her helm with her hand, looking at the ground.

 

“I never saw the like,” he said.

 

“And I'm not too keen on cutting its eyes out-” she began, when a sudden burst of black smoke appeared a few feet in front of their faces and a tall man stepped forward from the mist.  Zudarra's demeanor instantly changed; she took up her sword, still wet and dripping with blood and snarled at the newcomer.

 

“Please _do_ calm down,” he said dryly.  “I've come to collect the clannfear eyes and offer your due reward.  I don't believe you are followers of Sheogorath, but that you should be so was never stipulated.”

 

The man that stood before them was dressed in a bizarrely extravagant black silk suit with tall, puffy shoulders and black hose.  An oversized, red-frilled collar rose to the man's chin, snugly hugging his neck until the pointy frill blossomed out.  The effect was quite ridiculous, as if his head were the center of a blooming flower.  He appeared to be in his early sixties; bald but for a ring of thin gray hair around the back of his skull, pale skin engraved with deep lines from frowning.  His entire face drooped, from his sagging jowls to the crow's feet at the corner of his baggy, tired eyes.  The tip of his beak-like nose seemed to droop down as well.  All of these features implied an Imperial but Zudarra could plainly smell that he was not anything human or mortal.

 

He looked at them with extreme boredom, completely disinterested in the snarling vampire or the enormous corpse behind her, hands clasped behind his back.  Zudarra's composure returned, but she did not lower her sword.

 

Saraven did not even draw his weapon.  The man's words made it clear that it probably would be of no use.  Instead he bowed from the shoulders, one arm out to rest against Zudarra's breastplate in a restraining gesture that he absolutely would not have dared attempt three weeks ago.

 

“Take them and welcome,” he said.  “We ask for no reward if it delivers us from His wrath.”

 

The strange man raised a hand palm-up and inky black butterflies that seemed to flow out of the thread of his suit fluttered across his hand, black wings obscuring his palm for a second before fading away like smoke.  When they had gone a large silver platter with a domed lid remained behind, ornately detailed and gleaming prettily in the pink and orange hues of the rising sun.  With his other hand he lifted the lid and the vampires heard a wet noise behind them.  

 

They turned to see the dead eyes of the clannfear bulging out of the scaly lids until finally they both popped free with a wet squelch and rose in the air, the optic nerve slithering out of the socket to trail behind them.  The eyeballs floated forward and Zudarra jerked aside to let them pass, jaw dropping in disbelief.  When they landed on the platter the man replaced the lid and stood holding it one-handed.

 

“I should think that denying a gift from His Lordship is the greater slight,” the man sighed.  “Are you even curious to know what it would be?”

 

Zudarra did not know what to say.  She _was_ curious, but Saraven seemed very wary.  He was more experienced with the Daedra than she, and after her experiences with Molag Bal, Zudarra was not very eager to accept anything from a Prince.  But that certainly sounded like a threat.  She cut her eyes sideways at Saraven, questioning.

 

“Of course we're curious,” Saraven said, his face an impassive mask.  They had been warned.  “And certainly we would not wish to offer any slight to the Lord of Misrule.”

 

To accept a gift from Lord Sheogorath was to risk any amount of horrors, but to offend him was always to ensure a worse fate.  He was not a scholar of daedric lore, but he did know that much.

 

The Sheogorites behind the stranger had grown quieter, some of them sniffling despondently or consoling others, the rest watching the proceedings respectfully.  Some had wandered away and were playing leap-frog among the corpses.

 

“Don't worry!”  The young Argonian had apparently survived the battle somehow, bloody axe resting on her shoulder.  She now stood beside Saraven, clapping a small hand to his shoulder.  There was a bandage tied around her head made from part of her skirt, but her big grin was undeterred.  “If Lord High Panjandrum Haskill thinks it is worth seeing, it is worth seeing indeed!”

 

None of those words meant anything to Zudarra and she stared stupidly at the little Argonian, fist clenching tensely around the hilt of the sword that wasn't hers.  Her eyes returned slowly to the man when he spoke.

 

“Indeed,” Haskill said.  “The heart's truest desire: this is what Lord Sheogorath promised to whomever could fell the clannfear and retrieve its eyes, which you two have done whether or not you knew you were doing it.”

 

“My new shooeeeesss,” a voice howled bitterly from the crowd.

 

Haskill stepped toward them, once again removing the lid of the platter.  Zudarra recoiled from the eyeballs she expected to have shoved under her nose, but instead he had revealed two strange glass bottles.

 

The first bottle was filled with a dark red liquid, fat at the base but with an elegant, thinly tapering neck studded with upward curving spikes.  Bat-like wings flared out of the top of the glass stopper which was tied with black ribbon.

 

The second bottle, which was closest to Zudarra, was filled with a glowing, opalescent liquid that pulsed faintly.  She felt inexplicably drawn to it, could feel a thrum of power from it even from where she stood.  The bottle was tall and grew broader at the top, as if to mimic strong shoulders.  Above this was a frill of glass that flared out behind the long neck.  Like the other, it was corked with a glass stopper and tied with white ribbon.

 

“A cure for one.  Great power for the other.  This is what your hearts’ desire, do they not?” Haskill asked, holding out the platter to them.  Zudarra stabbed her sword into the ground and tentatively reached out for the pulsing white potion, fear and excitement swirling together in her cold breast.  

 

 _Great power!  And a cure for Saraven!_  She couldn't believe it.  Half of her mind was singing joyously for her own good fortune, while the other half sighed in relief at the weight lifting from her shoulders.  Saraven would be restored, and with an end to his vampirism her guilty burden would be gone.  She glanced back at Saraven to be sure it was all real.

 

Saraven nodded slowly as Zudarra looked at him.  He did not want to be cured at all, he realized.  He hated to acknowledge it, but it was the truth.  At least she would have what she really wanted.  It was his duty and his responsibility to accept what was offered, not only to avoid offending the daedra and suffering a terrible fate, but that he might end his life mortal and pass from the world as was his natural duty.  When he was mortal again that would not seem so dreadful, when he had back the aches and pains of advancing age, when he was trapped again in a body that kept failing him.

 

_Think how many I could have saved if I went on immortal._

 

_Think how many I might harm or kill by accident because I cannot control my lust for blood._

 

No.  He owed it to the world to accept this.  He reached for the dark red potion and carefully thumbed free the winged stopper.  He drank it slowly, not wishing to choke himself; that was the sort of irony that he felt Sheogorath would quite enjoy.  

 

He was ready for loss of consciousness, for loss of strength, for his body to transform again.  That was not what happened.  Instead he felt something cold and deliberate leech into his veins, spreading like a draft of ice.  The constant ever-devouring lust was still there, but caged, restrained, held tight within himself.

 

_I have gained power over myself._

 

He looked up at the man with the tray, staring in astonishment.  Then he realized what the man had said and turned to look at Zudarra.

 

* * *

 

Zudarra held the potion to her lips, mind racing with wonder.  What sort of power was she being gifted?  Would she feel the incredible strength she felt now every day for the rest of her immortal life?  This Haskill did not seem inclined to say; daedra always had to speak in riddles, those associated with the Prince of Madness especially so.

 

She watched Saraven down his potion with a sharp pang of bittersweet longing.

 

_A warm touch on her head, heart pulsing weak but alive._

 

 _No more endless hunger, no more hiding from the light of day, no more danger of waking up in Molag Bal's desolate realm to serve as his plaything for the rest of eternity._ He was lucky to escape this hell that Zudarra had picked for herself.  Zudarra found that, in spite of her unexpected sadness, she was glad for him.  She wasn't just glad that she was absolved of her guilt; Zudarra was glad that Saraven would be happy.  It may have been the Khajiit's first truly unselfish thought since meeting him.

 

Her lip pulled up in a small smile and Zudarra threw back her head to drink before Saraven had finished his.  The liquid was unpleasantly bitter; it was not blood, but she gulped it all.

 

The potion had been lukewarm going down, but now something warm burned in her belly.  Her stomach twisted, a sudden pain burst in her chest.  The empty bottle fell from Zudarra's hand and she doubled over, clutching uselessly at her chest through the armor.  Her jaw fell open in a silent scream of agony.  Something throbbed inside her chest, an iron fist clenching around her heart over and over again.  The heat exploded out from her heart, racing through her veins and burning her from the inside.

 

Fire in her veins!  In her lungs!  Every organ burned with the white-hot intensity of the sun.  Zudarra dropped to one knee, looking up at the impassive, drooping face of the traitorous Haskill.   _Trickery!  Poison!_ Her mind belted the words, but she was unable to speak or to form any other coherent thoughts.  The world was growing blurry, edged with gray, and Zudarra felt an itching in her gums.  She could not see her long fangs slowly recede, but she could feel the itchy, achy, slithery sensation as they shrank.  The crimson pigment of her eyes faded away like a drop of ink dissipating in the water, revealing pretty hazel irises as she stared up at the sky in wide-eyed terror.

 

She could no longer focus on any one thing.  The world had no color and was growing narrower with every aching throb of her long-dead heart.  Zudarra realized she was suffocating.  

 

She gasped suddenly, and the air she drew into her lungs, tinged with stink of the slain, was the sweetest she had ever tasted.  Her vision slowly cleared as she panted, sucking in great lungfuls of air that burned in her chest as her lungs inflated more than they were used to.  The ache in her chest was receding, and with it, the strength in her limbs leeched away.  Her armor grew impossibly heavy, weighing her down.

 

 _I'm dying_.  She dropped onto her forearms and finally the sound escaped her lips, a pitiful wail that was half a cry of fear and half a cry of agony.

 

* * *

 

 Saraven was dumbstruck as he heard Zudarra's heart burst into violent life, heard her rising pulse.  To hear her take her first breath stunned him.  He watched her change, suffused by wonder, red-on-red eyes wide.  Oh, the bloodlust was there, and mortal she was glorious, the scent of her shed blood changing from barely noticeable to mouth-watering.  But he was master of it now, easily quashing that desire.

 

He shook off this reverie as she collapsed, kneeling swiftly beside her to reach out and unfasten the clasps of her cuirass.  After a second he shucked his gauntlets and shoved them into his belt so that he could work faster.  There was a streak of black blood on his left hand, a desperate half-measure he no longer needed.

 

 _The scent of her shed blood._ She was wounded, had probably barely noticed it in the heat of battle, but there was blood on her padding around the cuirass seams.  Saraven winced at the sound she made.  

 

“Easy, girl, we'll get it off you.”  He tugged at her helmet first, that it might not hurt her neck, and then gently rolled her over so he could completely remove the cuirass.  Zudarra was shaking with rage and terror, desperately searching for the daedra that had done this to her, to kill him, but Saraven filled her vision.  He pushed the heavy armor piece aside, watched it fall open like the shell of some strange bivalve, and held an arm around her shoulders as he reached out to lay his other hand on her side.  He let the magicka go and watched it spiral up around her.  

 

She growled weakly at him – _Don't touch me!_ – but with his cold hand against her side some of her aches passed away.  It did not stop the tightness in her chest.  The heal wasn't enough.  She was still so weak, so frail, so tired!  Hot tears rushed freely from Zudarra's eyes, leaving a trail of wet fur along her muzzle.  

 

“It's all right.”  She was _warm_ now, and he regretted the coldness of his own flesh, so little able to give comfort, but without his vampiric strength he would not have been able to move the adamantium.  Give and take.  The evil with the good.

 

She could smell the blood encrusted on her fur, no longer alluring.  It stank.  She could smell herself.  Mortal.  Decaying.  Growing closer to death with every beat of her heart, her own ghastly clock counting down the seconds of her life.   She could hear the fast-paced thudding in her ears now.  It was so loud and all wrong, so like her own prey just before she drained them.  

 

“What's happening to me?  I'm dying,” she choked.  She twisted her head and finally caught sight of Sheogorath's servant and snarled at him, hands flying past Saraven's shoulders to claw desperately at the air.  “I'll kill you for this!”

 

“I doubt that, although it might be interesting to see you try,” Haskill responded, unamused.  

 

“Zudarra,” Saraven said with some sympathy and some exasperation, arms around her to hold her from lunging at the man in the big collar.  He was careful.  She was big and strong, had always been big and strong, but he could still bruise her by accident.  “You're not dying, you've come back to life.  You're cured.”

 

And it must have been what she wanted, he realized.  He had what he had wanted, what he had truly wanted, not what he had felt was his duty to accept.  Freedom from the crushing limitations of his aging body, his failing mind.  Control over his vampiric urges.  Power to go on.  He had not wanted to relinquish what he had never wanted to receive.

 

She was weeping, he realized.  He did not know in what state she had converted.  Was she tired now, dehydrated, hungry?  Suddenly he realized how fragile the mortal state was, how desperate in its needs.  Vampiric lust was pressing, but ignoring that need would not end him.

 

“Come on,” he said.  “I'll help you carry the armor.  We'll go find the others.”

 

“I am dying!” she insisted angrily, shoving at Saraven's arms.  “That bastard tricked us!”

 

“There was no trickery, I assure you,” Haskill said evenly.  “Now, as delightful as this has been, I'm afraid I must return the the Isles.  On behalf of Lord Sheogorath I thank you both for your service and bid you good day.”  The man bowed deeply to them both, still holding the silver platter above his head.  Saraven bowed his head politely as Haskill vanished in a flash of black smoke that quickly dissipated on the wind as if he had never been.

 

Zudarra pushed against Saraven and he released her rather than let Zudarra hurt herself.  He stood as Zudarra staggered to her feet, glaring at the spot that Haskill had been.  Her legs were so heavy in the adamantium, but Zudarra realized she could still move.  She was not quite as weak as she felt.  She clutched her hand to her belly in response to a sharp pain and winced.  She turned her back to Saraven to wipe at the wetness on her face, horrified by her emotional outburst.

 

 _So weak.  So pathetic._  She growled at herself, screwing her eyes shut against another wave of panic.  She had to breathe slowly.  She had to calm her wild heartbeat.  She was acting like a fool in front of Saraven.

 

He looked at her flat ears, frowning.  She seemed terribly upset for having received something she must surely have wanted.  Had he taken the wrong bottle after all?  Ruined things for her to get what he himself wanted?

 

After several long moments of deep breathing, mind nearly overloading with the newness and the stink of every scent on the air, Zudarra turned and snatched up her helm from the ground.  Tucking it under one arm, she reached for her cuirass.  The huge thing was awkward to hold and its weight dragged her to the side, muscles trembling under the strain.  The ache in her arm was an unexpected burn and her fingers spasmed, cuirass slipping from her hand.

 

Saraven went to take up the cuirass, holding it by the collar.  She didn't want him to touch her, and he couldn't say that he blamed her.  He was still cold, and now that she was mortal he was a threat to her in a new and unpleasant way.  He could tell her that she would always be safe from him, that he was his own master now, but there was no reason why she should believe him.

 

He raised a placating hand.  “Come on, Zudarra.  We'll find the others.”  If she wasn't hungry or thirsty yet, she would be soon.  That pained grab at her belly suggested she probably was.

 

Zudarra shot him a sharp glare, wanting to snatch her armor from his hands.  She didn't need his help!  But if he wanted to be useful, she would let him.

 

 _You can hardly hold yourself up, you idiot,_ she thought bitterly, staggering after him.  Her mind was so fuddled up by the clawing ache in her stomach and her tiredness that she could barely think of anything else.  Every step was a hard-won victory but she gritted her teeth and bore it silently until they had reached the horses.  Zudarra vaguely realized the Dunmer must be fighting his own inner battle now, but she only really cared for her own plight in that moment.

 

The thralls had laid out their bedrolls side by side and had probably slept, but now Galmir was sitting up in his bed with the blanket over his lap.  His hands were on his knees and he stared broodingly down at them.  At the sound of footsteps he looked up, brows drawn together in concern, his aspect dark and grave in a way it had never been.  His black eyes were clear and intelligent as he watched them approach.

 

“What's happened?” he asked, throwing off the blanket and standing.  He wasn't sure if the blood caking Zudarra's face and neck were her own or not, but she seemed injured.   

 

Brithe looked up groggily as they approached, then sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and looked again at Zudarra.  No matter how many times she blinked, the Khajiit's eyes remained hazel.

 

“The gate is closed,” Saraven said.  “We encountered a manifestation of Sheogorath who decided to 'reward' us.  Zudarra is no longer a vampire.  She's going to need food and water.”

 

“Oh,” Brithe said, and got up quickly to rummage in the saddlebags for the food bag.  “Galmir, do you have meat?  There's bread, cheese here.  Here's a water skin.”  She set things on the bedroll beside her as she found them.

 

“Sit down before you fall down,” Saraven told Zudarra, setting the cuirass down beside the bedroll with a thunk.  Ves eased over to snuffle at them both, the familiar vampire and the slightly less familiar Khajiit.

 

Zudarra plunked herself down one one of the bedrolls in a stupor, oblivious to the horse or the people moving around her, bringing her things.  Saraven's words were sinking in and she realized, yes, that is what happened.   _I am not a vampire anymore.  I am mortal._ She sunk her head into her hands, hiding her eyes.

 

_Did you want this?  Weren't you envious of Saraven being cured?_

 

_No!  I don't want to die!  This body is frail and weak!_

 

Her fingers clenched around her own head, claws drawing out and digging against her skin as she curled inward.  She could feel all of their eyes burning on her back, pitying her, judging her.  The scent of food wormed its way into her consciousness and her tongue grew damp.  Zudarra looked beside her at the bread and cheese and lowered her hands from her face, snatching it up.  It smelled so _good_ and she ate ravenously, choking as the dry bread scraped down her parched throat.  She ripped off the cork of the water skin, not caring where it landed and drank without thinking.  The lukewarm water on her tongue, mingling with the bitter blood still on her mouth, was in that moment the most pleasant sensation Zudarra had ever experienced.  She gulped too quickly and was forced to pause while she choked.  Brithe patted her back carefully.

 

Zudarra’s stomach clenched uncomfortably.  The food did not seem to agree with her.  It sank like a lead weight in her belly and did not offer the instant relief of blood.  She was still weak.

 

Saraven stood facing the Cathay-raht, looking past her at Galmir.  There was a knowing look there that he had never seen.  The Bosmer had never moved to fetch the meat, but stood behind Zudarra, staring silently.  His hands clenched once and then became limp at his sides.  His mouth tugged down in a slight frown, but he seemed  weary rather than angry.  Saraven did not lay his hand on his sword hilt, but he thought about it.  It was just possible that the Bosmer had come to, realized what had been happening, and filched Brithe's belt knife, and damned if Saraven was going to let Zudarra be stabbed in the back five minutes after she regained her mortal life.

 

“Galmir?” he said quietly.

 

Galmir looked up at the Dunmer as if some spell had been broken, and he turned around to dig in his own saddle bag for some jerky.

 

“I'm fine,” the Bosmer responded tiredly, turning around with the packet of meat in his hands.  He crouched at Zudarra's side, holding out the food to her.  When he looked at the mortal Khajiit, he felt only a faint echo of the love and adoration he had felt before, mixed with disgust for what she had done to him and a small amount of pity for her sorry appearance.  She seemed thinner than when they parted, fur plastered to her face with blood and wet trails leading away from her now hazel eyes.  Her ears flattened against her skull and she glared from his face to his hand before taking the jerky, ripping into the paper wrap with her claws and tearing off a chunk with her teeth.  She turned her head away as she chewed.

 

The smoky, salty flavor exploded across her tongue and she wanted to savor the taste but could not force herself to slow her gulping.  The act of ripping shreds of meat with her teeth was deeply satisfying and uncomfortable all at once.  It was harsh on her throat when she swallowed.

 

“You have something you want to say to me?” Zudarra demanded after she had eaten half the packet without looking back at the Bosmer, who had stood, still watching her quietly.

 

“I have a lot to say to you, but now isn't the time,” he said with forced calm, and looked up at Saraven.  “What are you two going to do now?  Keep fighting, with her like this?”

 

“Of course,” Saraven said, white eyebrows rising.  He went to crouch near Zudarra, flicking his left gauntlet out of his belt to pry the broken link out of the inside.  He pinched it back into his cuirass with two fingers, then dug out a polishing cloth from his saddlebag to spit on and wipe out the blood.

 

“Unless she chooses otherwise.  We survived when I was mortal and she was undead.  If anything we are better off now than we were when we met.  She is young and strong.”  He glanced at Zudarra.  “But I must fight on either way, or who will stand before Dagon for us?  It won't be the Septims.  It's not fair to let it all rest on one Argonian, no matter how powerful he is.”

 

Brithe listened to them with a puzzled frown, as if she were trying to work her way back to real consciousness.  Her eyes were gradually growing less wide and blank and more heavy and knowing.

 

“What if I don't want to go?” Brithe said suddenly.  “What if I don't want to do this forever?”

 

Saraven turned to regard the Nord, tucking the gauntlet back into his belt.  He turned the black-stained cloth in his hand as he looked at her seriously.

 

“Then you are free to go.  I would ask that you wait until we are near a town with a Guild, so that you will have a place to find food and rest.  But if you really want it to stop, I will not lay a hand on you from this moment.  I place no constraint on you.”

 

“You almost killed me that first time,” she said.

 

He nodded.

 

“I didn't care then,” she said quietly.  “The pain was too much.  It still hurts.  But I've been thinking about it when I can't avoid it, and I don't think this is what Glarius would want for me, this half-life.”

 

Zudarra continued to eat while listening to their conversation.  It all seemed so petty, discussing the state of the world and their futures when she was sitting here in her decaying corpse of a body.  None of it concerned her and she didn't care.

 

Galmir looked at Brithe with new comprehension, as if he were seeing her for the first time.  He remembered holding her while they slept, both last night while the others were away and the night before.  Her warm touch had eased a vague ache that was always on the periphery of his consciousness, which he now understood to be grief.  She was like he had been, a mindless slave.

 

His fists balled at his sides and mouth pressed in a tight line, Galmir looked from Brithe to Saraven.

 

“Tell me something, Saraven.  You've been going into those gates and killing daedra, rescuing people... You've saved many lives, haven't you?  More than the Legion can claim.”

 

“There are many we have saved,” Saraven said.  He balled up the bloody rag and stuffed it into his saddlebag.  “There were others that we could not.  I don't know how our tally compares to the Legion's.”  He thought of those inside the abbatoir in the Skingrad gate who were too far gone to survive, whose bodies they had burned, and his mouth flattened to a thin line.  He thought of those to whom he had not even been able to administer that last mercy because he could not be trusted not to drink them dry.  And he thought of the Anvil City Guard and others like them, hurrying through town to help dig people out who were trapped inside their own homes.

 

He glanced at Zudarra again.  She didn't seem to be paying much attention.

 

“And yes, Brithe,” Saraven said.  “I wouldn't wish the life of a thrall on those I've loved.  I don't excuse what I've done.”

 

The Nord nodded, looking between him and Galmir as she sat beside the Khajiit.

 

Galmir inhaled deeply, as if fortifying himself for a difficult task.

 

“What you did to me was wrong, Zudarra.  You had no right,” he began, calm but firm.  Zudarra glared at him sharply, mouth open to snap a rebuttal, but Galmir raised a hand and continued his deliberate speech.  “No right to do what you did to me.  But if my blood helped you to kill even one dremora bastard I can't regret it.  Mr. Saraven Gol, if Brithe decides to go, I will stay to... feed you.”  He sighed and dropped his hand.  “You shouldn't stay, Brithe.  You're strong and.. and kind, and you deserve better.  I know it hurts, but you're young.  You can rebuild your life.”

 

Zudarra was still scowling at him.  It was easier to be angry than it was to be ashamed and she was too exhausted to examine herself.  Galmir had never feared Zudarra while he was enthralled, but now he swallowed uneasily.  She jerked her chin away as if to say his opinion was not worth responding to.

 

Saraven waited for the inevitable angry outburst, but Zudarra apparently had nothing to say.  She really must be exhausted.  He felt a pang of alarm, looking at her with knit brow.

 

Brithe stared at Galmir as she worked on assimilating that.  Then she got up and went over to put her arms around the Bosmer and hug him tightly.  “You are a good fellow, Galmir.”  The Bosmer's cheeks turned beet red when the Nord embraced him and he brought up his hands, unsure what to do, but finally closed his arms around her as well and squeezed her back.  

 

“That is a brave thing to offer,” Saraven said, looking back at them.  “And I thank you for it.  But since we're discussing it, maybe you should go with Brithe when the opportunity presents.  You've both lost someone, you can each trust the other not to ask something of you that you can't give.”

 

“What happens when you get thirsty?” Brithe asked.

 

“I can find another thrall.  There's still those who will choose that life over what they've got now,” Saraven said.  He shrugged.  “Maybe I'll have them one after the other, and each will go when they're ready.  I don't mind if that's how it works.”

 

Zudarra was no longer strong enough to separate him from his prey – but now she didn't have to.  Now he was his own master.  He had never expected to be thankful to Sheogorath for something.

 

Galmir raised a brow at Saraven's suggestion, as if the prospect of leaving had never occurred to him.

 

“Well, I.. I don't have anywhere to return to.  I lost.. everything.”  He brought a palm to his forehead and suddenly seemed very far away, as if it were dawning on him for the first time.  Galmir had not thought of that night in much detail since meeting Zudarra, but now it was all flooding back.  His voice wobbled when he spoke. “Everything burned.  Everything I knew is gone.  I don't have a single drake to my name.”

 

Zudarra stood suddenly – it was such an effort, she was so heavy and all she wanted to do was collapse and be unconscious for a very long time – and stalked over to Shadow and her saddle bag, pulling out the heavy sack of gold gifted them by Count Hassildor.  She flung it to the Bosmer's feet and he looked down in shock.

 

“There,” she said tersely.  “You have a horse, you have gold.  You're richer than half the people in Cyrodiil with their rubble houses right now.”

 

Saraven actually smiled at the Khajiit.   _What makes a hero is not that it is easy for them to do good.  It is that they are willing to fight against their worse nature._

 

“I, well, that is, thank you, but..  Brithe, what do you say to all this?” Galmir asked, incredulous, turning his wide eyes to the Nord.

 

“I would go,” Brithe said.  “With my hammer in my hand I will always find work.  Where would you choose to live?  Somewhere near a forest?  Cheydinhal, Chorrol?”

 

“Chorrol still stands,” Saraven said.  “I don't know about Cheydinhal.  That's where we would be going next.  I have hopes that Got-No-Home is there before us, but no rumor has yet reached us.  Chorrol is a long ride, mind.  You'd have to go slowly.”

 

Zudarra was unstrapping the rest of her armor while they spoke.  The food was beginning to digest and the pain in her gut was receding, but she felt like shit in a million other ways.  She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wanted to wring somebody's neck.  She shed her armor haphazardly, not caring where the pieces lay.

 

“I don't know,” Galmir sputtered, still in shock.  “I don't know these cities - I'm from Falinesti, never been anywhere else before.  Any town's as good as any other, I suppose.  Where are you going, Zudarra?”  After stripping to her padding the Khajiit had shouldered her bag and started away from them with no explanation.

 

“The river,” she grunted without looking back at them.

 

“Good idea,” Saraven said.  After a wash she would hopefully feel better, or at least a little more relaxed and ready to face the necessity of sleep.  And if anything stupid happened, as it sometimes would when emotions were high, he could still hear her heart beating from here.  It seemed incredibly loud, in fact.  He had never known her mortal.

 

“Chorrol, then,” Brithe said.  She watched Zudarra go, then went to drag a bedroll well away from the other one.  “I will get the saddle blanket for me, if you do not mind, Saraven.  She is having a bad day.”

 

“Thanks,” he said.  “I'll give Ves and Shadow a brush.”

 

He gathered up the adamantium armor and stacked it near the saddlebags.  Then he got the round brush from the saddlebag and went to unsaddle the gelding and then Shadow as well, giving the blankets to Brithe.  It looked like Galmir had already taken care of his own horse before he ran out of energy.  Both of them snorfled his hair, complaining in low grumbles at the smell of daedric blood.  He needed a wash himself.  He would go when Zudarra had returned.  

 

Meanwhile, caring for the horses was a pleasantly boring task.  He had enjoyed very little of that recently.  Brushing was something that linked together the moments of normalcy between the hours of fire and blood.  And now he was able to enjoy it.  The blood of dremora still quavered in his muscles, urging him to frantic madness, but it could not control him.  He could look at the two mortals and see them for what they were, hurting people making the best of a bad situation.

 

While he lived, pain and desire had never mastered him.  Now he was dead, and by the gift of a daedric prince he had only ever seen with fear and suspicion, he was yet the master.  He would always carry the burden of his guilt, that Zudarra had had to stand between him and the living; but he would have opportunities to make it up to her, and thanks to her he had not taken lives to whose families he must make reparation.  That was a gift of surpassing value.

 

As he brushed the horses he spoke to them softly in Dunmeris, keeping an ear out for changes to Zudarra's pulse.

 

* * *

 

It was another cool and misty morning, quickly warming as the sun climbed, but Zudarra was unprepared for the shocking frigidness of the river.  Temperature had meant nothing to her for a year and she jerked away when the cold water first assaulted her paw.  She had to wade in slowly, letting her body adjust.  It wasn't so bad then, with her fur to insulate her.

 

At first Zudarra did not bathe.  She stared at the ripples on the glassy surface, sparkling under the sun.  The warmth of it on her shoulders, in stark contrast with the cold below her waist, was very pleasant in a way she had not noticed in a long time.  The scent of the water was fresh and clean, inviting her to dip her head and lap the cool liquid.  She did.  It was even better than the water from the skin.  The cold was starting to irritate her so she stripped off her filthy clothes and scrubbed her fur with sand as quickly as she could.

 

She was shivering when she dragged herself from the water to sit naked on the bank, legs drawn up to her chest and tail curled around herself.  No one was around, and if they had been, Zudarra may not have cared.  The novelty of the river had worn off and her brooding thoughts returned.

 

 _I'm so weak, and I'm going to die someday.  If not in battle, I'll grow old and feeble first._  She closed her watering eyes before she could embarrass herself again.   _But you would have died someday as a vampire, you know this.  You tried to tell yourself you were too strong and clever, but were you?  Saraven had killed vampires much older than you.  It was only a matter of time._

 

She knew it was the truth but had never wanted to admit it.  There was no such thing as immortality.  If there was, vampirism was not the path to achieve it.  She'd been living on borrowed time, nothing more.

 

“I was strong before I turned,” Zudarra said to the air, opening her eyes and clenching a fist with sudden determination.  “I'll be strong again.”  She didn't know if it was true.  She didn't know if she could ever get used to her new weakness, but the only path to take was forward.

 

She did not really want to go back, did not want to face Galmir, did not want to see the pity she imagined on Saraven's face.  But she was cold and tired and there was nowhere else she could go to be warm, so Zudarra dressed when her fur was half-dry and returned to the others, saying nothing to any of them before she flopped down on the bed.  

 

The bedroll and the blanket smelled of Galmir and Brithe but it was just a scent.  It was not a constant irritation that spurred her thirst.  Almost immediately she fell into a heavy slumber.  

 

* * *

 

Zudarra returned without speaking to him, to any of them; she just collapsed onto a bedroll and fell asleep.  Saraven finished his task, put the brush away, and went to look down at her.  He was peripherally aware of Brithe and Galmir talking, tentatively discussing their plans.

 

She was different asleep, brow unknit, face relaxed.  He realized slowly that he had never seen her thus.  She had always been awake by the time he woke up, if she chose to sleep at all.  Her eyelids twitched as her eyes moved behind them.  She was dreaming, chest expanding and contracting as she breathed, a very strange thing.

 

He was aware of the great artery and vein pulsing on the side of her neck nearest him, under the coating of damp fur – it was pretty fur, if you came to look at it without Zudarra yelling in your face, and that was a funny thought.

 

 _I could do to her what she has done to me._  But if he did he would not even have animal bloodlust to excuse him.  It would be a deliberate act of something very akin to rape, using another person's body against their will without the necessity of battle.  And what had he earned if not the ability to choose not to be that monster?  Perhaps he had an eternity walking Nirn ahead of him, alone forever as he had been alone before.  That thought wrung his heart now as it had not two months previous; but it was full soon to worry about that.  Perhaps he would be burnt to ashes in the fires of the next gate.  Now was all.  And now he chose the harder way.  He needed her strong, and he wanted her to be able to trust him, now and always.

 

“You are safe with me,” he told her softly, not wishing to wake her, hoping that words of reassurance would reach into her dreams.  Then he went to wash up and clean his armor.  He devoted a few minutes to getting the black stain out of the inside of his left gauntlet.

 

She slept long.  The two thralls dozed for part of that time as well, curled up together on the other bedroll and the horse blankets.  Saraven paced around them silently as he waited out the early afternoon, unstung by the sun as yet.  Tomorrow would be another matter, but he had many hours yet to deal with that.  The daedric blood gradually faded with all of its fervency, leaving him calmer, alone with three beating hearts.

 


	19. Chapter 19

Fragments of dream came and went – snarling dremora, a grinning Saraven, fire and lightning.  None of it remained clear in her mind when consciousness finally dawned.  

 

She was aware of bright light against her eyelids.  Zudarra slowly opened her eyes, wincing against the light of late afternoon.  She felt so warm with the blanket still wrapped around her, and most of the aches from earlier seemed to be gone.  Her stomach complained as she sat up to look around for Saraven, but it was not the all-consuming pain of vampiric thirst.  Her mind was finally clear.

 

The thralls were up again and sharing breakfast by the time she started to stir.  At that point Saraven was squatting a couple of yards off, in process of flicking missed bits of dried gore out of the ridges of his daedric blade with a broken chain link.  His face was relaxed, contemplative as he worked at the mundane task.  He smelled cleaner, no longer reeking of battlefield gore, and his mail gleamed gently in the sun.  The adamantium armor that lay near her was clean as well.  Eventually he had been bored.

 

He raised his head as she sat up, then sheathed the sword.

 

“Afternoon,” he said.

 

“Hello,” she said lightly, looking around to see what all had happened while she was out.  She noted that her armor had been cleaned as the sweet tang of oranges reached her nose.  Galmir and Brithe were sitting nearby on the other bedroll, peeling oranges in their laps.  The Bosmer nodded to her when she looked his way, without the dopey smile she was accustom to.  He reached into the bag laying at his side and tossed an orange over to her.

 

“Thanks,” she grunted.  After her previously unpleasant meal she didn't expect to look forward to the chore of eating, but this time her stomach was settled and ready to accept the food.  The fruit was so juicy, so overwhelming sweet to her senses that it was almost too much.  She ate slowly this time, closing her eyes as she savored every bite.  It was a pleasure so different from blood – gentle, calm, without any worry that someone would come bash her skull from behind while she was frozen in rapture.  

 

“We've decided that we will go to Chorrol,” Galmir announced to both of them, a little misty-eyed.  Although his happiness with Zudarra and Saraven had been forced on him, it had been real, and he would miss their company.  “We'll ride North with you until it's time to part ways, and feed you until then if you need it.”  Beside Galmir, Brithe nodded firmly.

 

“Thank you,” Saraven said.  “That's generous, and it makes things easier.”

 

He slid a glance over to Zudarra, who seemed to be enjoying her orange more than was reasonable.  Maybe she had forgotten what taste was like.  Maybe he had forgotten what taste was like.  Food had been ashes in his mouth for years, and after that he'd never allowed himself to stop and enjoy much of anything beyond the occasional dalliance with a guildmate.

 

It occurred to him to wonder if he was still functional.  There had been no time to worry about anything remotely related to that, and it wasn't important in the long run, was it?  He had never intended to sire further children even when he was alive.  And he certainly wasn't going to ask Zudarra about it in front of the other two.  Blood was a pleasure.  Perhaps that was all there was.

 

“Are you able to ride out?” he asked Zudarra.

 

“Of course I am,” Zudarra snipped indignantly, ears flicking back.  Her eyes widened at a sudden realization, and then she closed her eyes and laughed, flashing her short fangs in a wide-mouthed cackle.   _Molag Bal doesn't own me anymore!  I_ can _ride out, but maybe I won't!_  She inhaled deeply to recover from the sudden burst of laughter and stood, flicking orange peel off into the grass and wiping her sticky fingers on her thigh.  Saraven watched her carefully, thin lips pulled slightly to one side.  He supposed being moodier than usual was a normal reaction to such an enormous and unexpected change, but it worried him nonetheless.  

 

 _Saraven will go alone if you don't go with him._  Her amused smile fell away and she looked at Saraven very seriously.  He must be wondering what had been so damn funny; Brithe was eating calmly, paying no attention, but Galmir was staring at her in confusion.  She didn't feel the need to explain herself.

 

“Saraven.  I'm sorry you didn't get cured,” Zudarra said, pushing away her previous thought.  She wasn't sure what she was going to do yet.  “Did anything even happen when you drank that potion?  You look the same.”

 

“I have what I truly wanted,” he said quietly.  “I have control.  But it didn't hurt.  I'm sorry you had to go through that.”

 

She stared at him curiously for a moment, then glanced back at Galmir and moved closer to Saraven, shoulder to the Bosmer to exclude him from the conversation.  He seemed to understand her meaning; he patted Brithe's shoulder and stood, packing up the bedrolls and supplies so they could be underway.

 

“You were ready to throw yourself into the fire a few days ago.  Are you saying you don't mind being a vampire anymore?” Zudarra asked in a low voice.

 

“I mind it much less,” Saraven said.  “Now there's no chance I'll kill someone without knowing what I'm doing.  My mind is completely my own, and that... was not the case any more at the time we met.  Everything is clearer.  I didn't want to go back to the way things were, but if it was that or risk committing murder every time I was thirsty I was prepared to accept it.  I will always have the shame that you had to keep stopping me, but at least now it'll never happen again.”  He glanced at the other two seriously, thinking of the moment when she had literally, physically pulled him from the Nord's throat.  “I can accomplish more this way.  I was never going to have a life of quiet retirement even if the gates had never opened, you know.  I would have kept going until I froze at the wrong time, and then one of them would have killed me.”

 

Zudarra silently considered his words as she moved to dress in her armor, starting with the pieces she could reach on her own.  She hated that this had to be done with Saraven and everyone else watching.  Zudarra knew that she would struggle with the weight of it.  But she had worn heavy armor before she turned, damn it, and it had never troubled her then.  She just wasn't used to this drastic reduction in strength.  

 

It seemed as though Saraven was actually happy with how things had turned out.  Zudarra couldn't say that she was.  Everything she had known, most of all her confidence in her own abilities, was in shambles.  But at least it was a relief to know she did not have an eternity in Bal's desolate ruin to look forward to.  In a way, a weight had been lifted.  She finished strapping her grieves and looked back at Saraven's face, smirking knowingly.  

 

“The power is seductive, isn't it?  Now you know why I let myself turn.  Help me with this,” she said.

 

“Yes, it is,” he said grimly, and moved to pick up the cuirass.  “I had never understood how many different reasons there could be for wanting to stay this way.”  He had seen only predators and victims.  There had probably been scores of other vampires who were more careful, who did not wantonly kill, who could resist the allure of his blood as he slept.  There were probably more than he had ever known.

 

The crushing weight increased with every piece of armor added, but Zudarra bore it better than she had that morning.  Saraven was careful not to let weight transfer in each piece until he was sure she could hold up under it.  Fully armored, she found that she could still carry the adamantium without a vampire's strength, although she felt obscenely sluggish.  Zudarra was glad she had picked up a smaller sword earlier.  She seriously doubted she'd be able to swing a two-handed weapon any time soon, and couldn't bear the shame of having anyone know it.

 

Saraven realized he would have to hold back to keep from outpacing her inside a gate.  That was fine.  He was not an impatient mer.

 

His mind flew to other precautions as he followed her to Shadow to give her a boost into the saddle.  Water.  He had often been thirsty.  He should get another water skin to carry with them now that weight was hardly an issue for him.  It would be easily punctured, so the next time they were in a place that sold armor he would get a chainmail covering made for it.  He checked the skin hanging from Ves's saddle horn and found it full; Brithe must have taken it to the river earlier.  She climbed up behind him easily enough, arms around his waist.  He reveled in his own discomfort as they rode to the North.  He could hear her beating heart, feel the pulse in her wrists, her throat, and was tormented by gradually increasing thirst.  He withheld the slightest twitch or growl as he sat relaxed in the saddle. _I am the master of myself._

 

It was a warm, sunny day.  Bravil depended on the water for its livelihood, and on less pleasant little industries; there was little farmland around it for the dremora to burn, and they had been occupied at the gate.  They passed intact farms and fields as they rode North through the Nibenay Valley, the Upper Niben gleaming in the distance off to their right.  They departed from the Green Road as it turned West in order to take a more direct path as the crow flies, but they would rejoin it at the great bridge across the river in order to turn Northeast.  There were only a couple of bridges across the Niben, and without the ability to walk on water they must needs go by the Northern way or turn back for Leyawiin.

 

So they rode on through rolling green hills, surrounded by tall grass and bushy blossoms of lavender.  Mushrooms grew in the shade of the green chestnuts and oaks.  Saraven would swear that he saw a rabbit once, fluffy tail vanishing into a thicket of thorn bushes.  

 

As they rode, Zudarra found herself weighed down by troubled musings as much as by her adamantium.  It made no sense for her to continue on this journey, to throw herself into the path of danger for the sake of people she didn't know, for a nation she had no love for.  Especially now, vulnerable as she was.  She needed a month of training to relearn how to move in her armor and carry a blade.

 

But the crisis was happening _now_ and Saraven would go to battle _now_ if she left.  He may think himself invincible, but he was not.  Zudarra's heartbeat would quicken and her chest would constrict every time she returned to this thought.  Thinking about Saraven had been annoying enough before, but now her body physically responded to her unwelcome emotions in the most uncomfortable ways.

 

 _I can think more about it later.  No decisions need to be made now,_ Zudarra thought, and eventually found herself relaxing.  The armor was growing hot and she removed the helm after a time, luxuriating in the sporadic gusts of wind that ruffled her fur and offered a brief reprieve from the heat.  It was a tiny pleasure, but they were adding up.  She could distantly smell Brithe and Galmir, but she was blissfully unaware of their heartbeats.  She drank as the need arose and didn't even think of water in between the times when her mouth grew dry.  Even with her worries about Saraven and the Deadlands, Zudarra found that she was more at peace now than she could ever remember.  Had she forgotten what it was to be alive in only a year?

 

They heard the river long before they saw it, for the bridge increased the echoes.  In fatter times there had occasionally been bandits staking out the bridge across the Upper Niben.  The Legion would come and clean them out, but not so often that they were never present.  Today the great bridge looked chill and empty even in the sun, a pale fog arising from the river that obscured the center from the travelers' eyes.  It was broad enough that all three horses could walk abreast with room to spare, if they so chose.  The horses' hooves seemed loud as they stepped onto cobbled stone again.

 

They had nearly reached the end of the great bridge when a distant, echoing clop turned Zudarra's ear and she looked behind them to see a horse-drawn cart approaching.  Several blankets were tied down over a massive heap of things – Zudarra would guess furniture.  A rolled up rug was jutting out from beneath one corner and wooden feet from another.  From that distance and through the light fog Zudarra could just make out a family of four humans, one driving the small cart and the rest walking alongside it.

 

“They might have news,” Zudarra said, reining Shadow up alongside the road at the end of the bridge to wait.  Saraven reined up beside Zudarra, listening to the approach of four beating hearts.  Two were small, weaker: children.  It was an Imperial family with a boy and a girl.  Brithe lifted her chin from his shoulder to look down the bridge at the strangers as they emerged from the fog.  Ves whinnied a greeting at their horses, which was returned with a slightly different-toned noise that probably made sense to a horse.  By their dress they seemed to be city-dwellers of the merchant class.  The bottom of the lady's velvet skirt was stained with mud from the road and her brown hair was falling out of her braid.  She grabbed the children by their hands as they approached, hanging behind the cart.

 

“Hello,” the father said as he came within earshot, stopping his horse on the bridge.  He was young and handsome, with neatly trimmed brown hair and a day's worth of beard shadow.  “Not brigands, are you?”  He smiled tiredly, as if they simply could not be, as he was no mood to deal with such a thing.  He was unarmed.

 

“No.  We were hoping you have news of other places?  We're going to Cheydinhal, what of that?  And Anvil?”

 

“Ah, that's good,” the man sighed.  “We're going to Cheydinhal as well.  Word reached the Imperial City two days ago that the gate had been closed there and the city is untouched.  I'm sorry but I can't say anything about Anvil, other than since that gate was closed there's been no news.  No second gates have opened up in any of the cities, as a matter of fact, so I would say that it's safe.”

 

It was natural to talk to the person wearing heavy, bright armor, Saraven thought as he listened.  In Cyrodiil that carried the connotation of a relatively benign authority: the Legion, the Emperor's Blades, to a lesser extent the Fighters Guild.  Bandits and brigands were clad in fur, in leather, in scrapped-together bits of dirty iron.  Even the city guards kept their chainmail bright and their tabards clean; those with the worst reputations were the guards of Bravil, the dingiest city in Cyrodiil.  The idea that Zudarra could be a bandit wearing ornate adamantium armor was as ridiculous as the idea of a clannfear wearing a hat.

 

Saraven bowed from the shoulders as he saw the woman's eyes on him, but did not feel the need to enter the conversation.  He waited until both the sound of hoofbeats and the sound of heartbeats had faded before he said,

 

“If Cheydinhal is safe, we need not go there.  Galmir, Brithe, we should part company here.  You two can go on around the Ring Road, north to Chorrol.”

 

“And where will you go?” Brithe asked, as she swung carefully down behind him.  He dismounted to help her transfer her belongings to Galmir's horse.

 

“I'm for the City, back South across the Niben and then West and North to the bridge.”

 

“Will you not be fed before you go?” she asked.  “If there is no gate there it may be a long time for you.”

 

Saraven hesitated, pausing with a hand on the saddle horn.  She was correct.  He didn't care for the idea that they would part company with her and Galmir each remembering him as the cause of their weakness, of their journey being slow; but he also did not want to be hungry when they reached the City, or handicap his own travel time by forcing himself to travel out of the sun.

 

Galmir had been very quiet that day.  His mind was clearer than it had been in weeks and yet he felt that life was a dream, a nightmare he might wake from at any moment.  The road blurred when he thought of Mileth but he would not allow himself to cry in front of Zudarra and Saraven.  He missed the fog of complacency but could not return to that empty existence.  He was beginning to look forward to their parting, when he could show weakness to someone else who knew his pain.  

 

Galmir dismounted when the others did, as much to help them with the bags as to stretch his legs.  He saw the hesitation on the Dunmer's face when Brithe suggested he feed.

 

“It's all right, Saraven.  Like I said to Zudarra: If a single drop of my blood helps you defeat the daedra, I'm all for it.”

 

“Then I will accept that offer,” Saraven said quietly.  Brithe moved forward first, then paused to stare at him as he held out his hand for hers.  He would at least let them have the parting gift of some dignity.   _Know yourself.  Feel no pain._  He did not cloud her mind beyond the desire to keep it from hurting physically as he raised her wrist to his lips, not wanting to make it harder for them to ride out.  He sank in his teeth carefully, slowly enough to be aware if she winced, but she waited patiently, feeling nothing.  

 

It was as good as it had ever been, perhaps more because he had waited longer; he shut his eyes that they might not be seen to roll upward.  Certainly it was less comfortable standing up, but that was all to the good if it made it easier to stop.  This time he silently counted five before he let go – gently, detaching his lips without violent movement.  It did not feel easy.  It felt like pulling a tooth with pliers.   But he was able to do it, and that was all the difference in the world.

 

“This is all?” Brithe said, looking at him in surprise as he healed the small wound.  It gave him satisfaction to see her clear-eyed, still standing easily on her feet.  He clasped her hand for a moment before he let go.

 

“No reason to be greedy when there's two of you,” Saraven said.  “You've got a long ride.”

 

He treated Galmir in the same way, drinking from his wrist for five seconds, carefully taking the pain but imposing no pleasure, forcing no emotion that was not real.  Galmir waited fearfully for the fog to overtake him and make him stupid again, but it did not.  When it was done Saraven clapped his other hand carefully to the Bosmer's shoulder.  

 

“Thank you both,” he said.  “And good journey to you.  May you ride to better things.”

 

Brithe raised a hand.  "And to you both," she said quietly, looking from him to Zudarra.  Then she went to get the pillion from Ves, stuck it onto the back of Galmir's saddle, and mounted up.

 

Galmir smiled wistfully at the Dunmer, idly brushing his wrist where the puncture had been.  It didn't hurt, and there was no longer any trace of the wound.

 

“It was good to know you, Saraven.  Take care of yourself out there.”

 

Zudarra had been watching silently from atop her horse.  She remembered the ecstasy of drinking blood, but wasn't sure she missed it.  She no longer had the drive to want it.  She almost pitied Saraven for what he must be feeling now, having had so little to drink.  It was always like that with a thrall – constant restraint, constant thirst, knowing you could never give in to your desire to drain them.

 

Galmir had taken Elwaen by the bridle and turned back to look up at her now with a funny, tight-lipped expression, as if he didn't know what to say.  He couldn't bring himself to hate her, but how should he say farewell to one who had enslaved him?  The horse snuffled at his ear and he broke into a smile, laying his other hand on her nose.

 

“Good-bye, Zudarra.”

 

Zudarra acknowledged him with an upward jerk of her chin and watched him mount up behind Brithe, awkwardly repositioning his hands until he finally let them encircle her waist.  Zudarra almost snickered as she watched them go, clopping off down the road to an unknown future with her gold.  She thought she might regret giving them that, but she didn't.  She felt no guilt for what she had done to Galmir.  He would be okay – they both would, in time.

 

“Just you and me again,” Zudarra said quietly when they were well out of earshot.  The sun was beginning to set now and the crickets were beginning their evening song.

 

“So it is,” he said as he mounted back up.  He listened to the two heartbeats fade into the distance.  “Better for them.  Have to choose the next one carefully.”  He nudged the horse around to face back down the bridge and started off into the fog again.  “How'd you ever find Vandalion, anyhow?”

 

“He was an admirer of mine from the arena.  Kept leaving flowers and being a general pain until I gave in and invited him home,” Zudarra said, riding beside him and staring off at the sparkling orange waters of Lake Rumare.  “He was in love with me.  Probably would have been my thrall if I asked, but I didn't.”  She hadn't thought about Vandalion in a while, and didn't want to.  Had he been found and buried by now?  Was a single person in Tamriel wondering where he went?  She wished she would not think of it.

 

“What will you do if the next person says no?” she asked.  “They might report you.”

 

Saraven's mouth folded down at the corners.  He looked into the fog ahead of them, eyes searching, ears alert, blind to the beauty of the lake.  

 

“Brithe wouldn't have,” he said.  “Didn't care.  If I'm wrong about the next one I'll do my best to take their memory of seeing me.  I don't like that, but I can't be fighting the law and Dagon at the same time.”  Or the law and the rest of the vampires after that.  He was beginning to acknowledge the possibility that there might be a life after the cataclysm, that there might be a Cyrodiil with families that needed help and protection in the subsequent chaos.

 

Zudarra eyed the tall spire of the castle beyond the lake.  Today it seemed foreboding instead of majestic.  Dagon had to have a reason for leaving it untouched until now.  Whatever designs he had in store, Zudarra found it unlikely that she and Saraven could do anything to stop it.

 

It seemed that she was not alone in her thoughts.  Another group of travelers were coming toward them now from up the road, a few with carts like the earlier family, but most of them on horseback or on foot.  A flash of light from the corner of her eye turned Zudarra's attention back to the city, where swirling masses of black clouds were slowly forming, obscuring the top of the White-Gold Tower.  The whorl had been a focal point above the other gates, and now there were several, one over every district.  Red lightning crackled around the White-Gold Tower.

 

Zudarra's heart seemed to stop completely as she stared in horror at the herald of coming destruction.  The gates were opening _inside_ the city.  Saraven reined up beside Zudarra, following her wide-eyed gaze to the clouds above the Tower.  He could track the multiple foci as well as she could, knew at once what they meant.  He was aware of how strange it seemed that he could not hear the blood rushing in his ears, that his stomach barely seemed aware of his dread and horror – his mind divorced from his dead body.

 

 _We are ended,_ Saraven thought. _There is no way that the two of us can close that many gates that close together._

 

“We have to ford the lake!” Zudarra shouted, turning Shadow off the road.  Zudarra had made her decision without thought; she would fight with Saraven.  She could not run from a battle.  She could not abandon him to certain death.  Lake Rumare was narrowest at the tip of the little peninsula on which the Arcane University was situated.  It would be their only hope of arriving in time.  Saraven turned his knee into Ves and urged him after Shadow.  The gelding snorted, but he went.

 

It was Zudarra's life they were risking, not his.  He could not drown, did not need to breathe except to speak; and she was wearing incredibly heavy armor.  If she should slip from her horse he was not sure he could get it off her fast enough to save her from drowning.  His strength would not help him without leverage, trying to swim upward carrying a three hundred pound suit of armor.

 

“Be careful,” he growled back, and then they were pounding down the hill toward the lake, trampling sward and lavender, jumping fallen logs to get to the pebbly lake shore.  The lake was beginning to glow with the unholy red light of the clouds of the Deadlands gathering overhead.  Ves ran straight into the lake at his urging, first wading, then swimming, whinnying at the strangeness of it and the coldness of the water; but he was accustomed to the tight hand on his reins, and he kept on.

 

Shadow balked at the water's edge but Zudarra dug her knees into his side and with a whinnying shriek the drafter galloped into the shallows and plunged into the deeper water with his head held high.  The sudden cold was shocking to Zudarra as it engulfed her legs.  As the water rose to her chest she felt the weight of it inside her armor, dragging her down and leeching away her body heat, but she leaned forward and gripped Shadow tightly around the shoulders to keep herself from sliding off.  Her heart was pounding now; she could feel it thudding wildly against her chest, in her ears, a rush of adrenaline that numbed the fear and the cold.  Shadow's muscles rolled beneath her fingers with every kick of his strong legs and Zudarra knew that she was completely dependent on him until they had reached land.

 

It was startling to realize how little Saraven felt the cold as the water rose up to his thighs, to his chest; Ves was keeping his head above the surface but Saraven could not do so without risking floating free of the horse.  He held tight to the gelding's neck instead, head underwater.  It gonged in his ears as he listened to the distant clack of Zudarra's armor against her saddle, but he could see little, the water green and nearly opaque around him.  Red shafts of light pierced here and there, showing little.

 

He felt the impact as Ves's feet found ground again, and the water churned with silt as the horse scrambled for purchase and ran up the bank, panting and blowing.  A flood of water gushed from Zudarra’s armor ahead of him.  Her damp fur and padding might offer some protection against the magefire but now Zudarra trembled involuntarily at the cold.  

 

The bridge to the city was a mass of confusion, people running to and from the University – some fleeing the chaos in the city, others on their way to help.  Zudarra shoved her helm down over her ears and dropped from Shadow's side without stopping.  He slowed when her weight was no longer with him, tossing his head at the shouts and the stink of fear as people ran past on the bridge nearby.  There was no time to find a secure place for the horses, and to tie them up here would be to ensure their deaths if the daedra got this far.  They would probably not cross the water on their own, and would be safest given free range on the island.

 

Saraven reigned up and dismounted as Zudarra did, hooked the water skin from the saddle horn and slung it over one shoulder, shoved it under the strap that held his baldric to keep it in place.  

 

“Survive,” he told Ves in Dunmeris, and slapped the horse on the flank as he turned to follow the Khajiit.  The gelding took out after Shadow immediately, whinnying.

 

Zudarra was already on her way up the slope toward the city, water still draining out of her armor, unstoppable, inimitable.  Saraven walked quickly to catch up, falling in beside her as they climbed the hill.  The bridge between the University and the City loomed on their right, casting a giant shadow.  As they topped the slope people instinctively got out of the Cathay-raht's way, and Saraven hooked his mail hood up over his head as he moved in her wake.

 

The gate to the City opened into the Arboretum.  A round palisade in the center was ringed by statues of the Nine Divines, surrounded by grasses and flowers and raised beds with stone rims.  The ubiquitous fly amanita burgeoned in the shade, red caps gleaming.  Paths led forward toward Green Emperor way and to either side to and from other Districts – he could see the roof of the Arena in the distance off to their right.  The paths were crowded with people, although there was not yet such panic as to render the landscaping navigable.

 

There was no gate in this district, but the darkened sky promised one nearby.  A battalion of legionnaires raced across the courtyard in their dull iron armor toward the castle, the most likely focal point of the attack.  With the heavy, iron-reinforced doors held open Zudarra could just make out a shimmering red membrane in front of the White-Gold, over the heads of the men as they streamed into Green Emperor Way.  She looked at Saraven and jerked her head in that direction, then took off after the legionnaires, sword in hand.  The officer holding the door saw them coming and kept it open for them, thrusting his armored fist into the air when they passed.

 

“For the Empire!”

 

Saraven lifted his chin at the Legionnaire as he shouldered his way through the gate alongside Zudarra.  Green Emperor Way curled around the palace proper in front of them, circling the towering bulk of the Palace, and an ancient cemetery occupied the green sward between the stone walk and the ring wall, monuments of all shapes and sizes crowding in with their separate histories.  It was a proud family indeed that could say its dead were buried on Green Emperor Way.  Now dremora trampled the grass and knocked over lesser stones without heed, perhaps not even knowing what they were destroying.

 

As the legionaries fanned out shoulder to shoulder in front of them, they could catch glimpses of dremora rushing two-by-two through the gate, shouting their furious war cries as they emerged with weapons drawn to smash into the first living thing they saw.  Soldiers swarmed the portal, but there was already a large crowd of daedra waiting for them, and the dremora viciously fought their way through the encircling line to make way for their emerging brethren.  

 

“Defend the Emperor!  Don't let them reach the Tower!” someone shouted, and Zudarra had a split second to think _The Emperor is dead, what is he talking about?_ before the man in front of her went down with an a sword through his eye and a snarling dremora yanked back his bloodied weapon and was darting for her.  Zudarra raised her sword to parry.  She moved painfully slow, bogged down by mortal limitations as much as by the weight of her armor.  Sparks flew as steel met steel and the dremora slashed at her head as he jumped back.  She wasn't able to block in time – everything seemed to move unnaturally fast – and the crash of blade against her helm set her ears ringing.  

 

* * *

 

Saraven almost tripped over his own feet at words about the Emperor – what Emperor?

 

_I need to know what is really at stake here._

 

He danced through the crowd as he drew his sword, looking for the right opening, and then darted forward to smash his sword-hilt into the back of a dremora's skull.  He caught the falling creature without stopping and hauled him behind a heavy tombstone to press his back to the monument, arms encircling the stunned demon as he sank his teeth into its throat.

 

The explosion of ecstasy was no less than it had been before.  He was blind to the world for seconds.  But there came a moment after when he knew what was happening, even through the whelming waves of pleasure, could hear the heart weakening, knew that he could choose to stop.  He did not choose to stop.  This was no thrall, no mortal in a terrible situation deserving of mercy and consideration.  He held in his arms the enemy of all that he had ever loved.  He drank without ceasing until the blood stopped coming, then dropped the dremora onto the grave, touching a hand reverently to the tombstone as he rose – an offering of a fallen foe to an ancestor of Cyrodiil, something that spoke to the Dunmer in his blood and bone.

 

Power coursed through his body.  His muscles trembled with it, ready, eager for release.  Saraven looked around for Zudarra in her adamantium armor and found her staggering from a blow to the helm, a dremora sneering as he prepared to jab at the opening in her helm with a sword.  Saraven extended his hand and let the lightning go, and the creature convulsed, screaming between jagged teeth, and then he was running past and picking up speed and -

 

The world slowed.

 

He felt he was running at a normal rate, but everything around him seemed to be moving through water.  He navigated easily between Legionnaires and their foes, so fast that they could detect him as nothing but a blur and a wind of passage.  He passed a man in steel armor whose sword was only now indenting the throat of a dremora in front of him, droplets of blood streaming seemingly weightless as the blade began slowly, slowly to pierce flesh.  When he glanced back he saw Zudarra's tail begin to lash to one side, so slowly that he could track the trailing progress of cream-colored wavelets of fur not yet caught up to the movement of the whole, and the dremora in front of her was still jerking, individual muscle contractions seemingly almost a full second apart.

 

Ahead of him loomed the Palace steps, the great columns circling the building out of sight, White-Gold Tower crowned with foreboding black clouds far above.  On the top landing before the great doors stood a tall thin-shouldered Argonian in tattered gray robes.  His face and hands were pale, dull green and pinkish red, as though they had been faded from richer hues by hardship or disease.  Twin crests of bone and stretched skin fanned back from his face like little wings, crowned with tiny horns whose points were almost all either dull or broken.  His cheeks were sunken, muzzle long and thin.  One who passed him on the street might take him for a mendicant, some beggar, if not for the staff in his left hand.  It was carved of knotted, twisted wood, undecorated, flaring into a rootlike crown on one end, but the power of the thing raised the hairs along Saraven's neck even where he stood.  It had just finished discharging a blast of magicka at a dremora who had attained to the steps, and the fingers of power stretched almost stationary between the staff and the demon, fire, frost, lightning united as one white-hot blast of agony.  

 

The Argonian's robes swirled about his knees with dreamlike majesty as he clenched his left hand.  Power rippled in the air around him as a shield formed.  His eyes were dull, dark red, narrowed with concentration; he was not able to see Saraven, but he was aware something was there.  His hands were covered with tarnished rings, stones dully glittering in the red light.

 

_Got-No-Home, it has to be.  What is going on inside that he guards the doors alone?  Is Chancellor Ocato that precious to the Empire now?_

 

Saraven turned to make his way down and across the steps.  His sword licked out as he went, piercing a brainstem here, a throat there, and he had moved on before his enemies even knew that they were dead, before they ever began to fall.  Once he tore off a helmet only to see it seemingly float through the air, the law of gravity weakened and blunted by the terrific speed with which he now moved.  To everyone else dremora seemed to die from no cause as they approached the steps, falling one by one in a traveling wave of bloody murder.  He felt himself burning up the blood he had drunk, and knew that he could not maintain this for much longer; and then he attained the walkway near Zudarra again and staggered as the ground shook under his feet.

 

There were cries of horror and dismay all around him as he turned to see a giant shadow fall across the Palace, over the Argonian, over the gate.

 

* * *

 

It was everything Zudarra could do to focus on the enemy in front of her and guard the few weak points in her armor long enough to get a good shot at one of theirs.  When lightning crackled over her shoulder she knew it had been Saraven's hand, but there was no time to search for him in the chaos before the next daedra closed in.

 

Any fears were dulled by the rush of victory as her toothed blade ripped through the flesh of her enemies.  The cacophony of battle and the burn in her muscles faded into the background as Zudarra focused on the movements in the sea of flashing blades and snarling faces.  There was no time for cocky showmanship now, only survival.

 

A shadow fell across the dremora in front of her as the ground shook, cries of terror finally trickling through her wall of focus.  The dremora grinned, eyes flicking up to something behind her and Zudarra kicked at his leg, bashing the hilt of her sword into his skull as he lost his footing and went down on one knee.  She spun to see a gigantic, red-skinned monster, just taller than the city walls.  She would have known it to be Mehrunes Dagon himself even if she had never seen the towering four-armed statues with their menacing goblinesque scowls.  His lower lips bulged around long, tusk-like fangs and a row of horns trailed from the forehead to the back of his bald skull.  She could feel an otherworldly power emanating from the Prince, pressing against her mind as much as it pressed down on her from all sides.  The air was choked with it, a strange staticky sensation that prickled against her skin and made her fur rise.  

 

Dagon's body was covered in something that looked like ritual scars, reminiscent of the strange gray-skinned daedra they had encountered only once.  Dragonscale faulds and a giant gorget that draped across his chest were his only armor, but she knew that no weapon on Nirn would ever pierce his skin.  

 

There were no giant portals to deliver him.  He had simply appeared, summoned from the Deadlands as easily as a mage calls forth a scamp.

 

He carried a two-headed battle axe in a single clawed fist and swung into the crowd at his feet, moving with unnatural speed for something his size.  Legionnaires screamed as they ran to get out of his way but most were not fast enough, blade slicing through armor as easily as through flesh.  Torsos sailed through the air like rag dolls as the lower halves skidded across the walkway, entrails and blood flying after them to shower the survivors with red gore.

 

Zudarra's legs turned to lead as her jaw dropped in horror at the sight before her, her mind screaming at her to flee.  A growl beside her pulled her from Dagon's grasp and she hunched her shoulder to guard against the blow from a mace on her left.  She had no need to retaliate.  The dremora was knocked aside by a crowd of fleeing soldiers, so wild with terror that they scarcely knew what they were doing.  Zudarra braced herself against the flood, lowering herself to one knee and pressing her chin to her chest.  She looked up to see others racing for Dagon, the brave few who would willfully run to their own deaths in the hope of buying time for the others.  

 

Her eyes darted frantically for Saraven as she stood.

 

* * *

 

Saraven stood transfixed at first, staring up at the calamity to end all calamities.  They had failed.  He had failed.  Mehrunes Dagon walked in Nirn.  The dread of the great Prince's aura washed over him, and he knew his own insignificance.  There was no reason to continue fighting.  He might as well drop his sword and wait for the end.

 

Saraven clenched teeth and fist stubbornly. _No.  I chose this dead body, this dead flesh, that I might not die passive and waiting._ He shook off the dreadful paralysis as he looked for Zudarra, found the stained adamantium still glittering through the blood and dirt where she stood alone.  Ahead of her, Legionnaires were running toward the god's giant feet.  Saraven put on one last burst of supernatural speed and was beside her.

 

“I'm here,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the din.

 

The Prince turned toward the palace, giant feet crushing the defenders underfoot, powdering tombstones or flattening them so far into the sward that they were no longer visible.  Screams choked off in horrible gurgling, in sudden, dreadful silence.  And then the giant shadow passed over them and Saraven turned to see Got-No-Home standing with upraised arms, teeth bared in a brilliant grin as he shook his staff in the face of the end of all things.  Magicka licked out from the staff, striking the Daedra Prince's ankle, leaving no mark at all.

 

Dagon swept his giant axe down with majestic slowness, ignoring the swords and arrows of the last of the Legion about his feet.  The great blade connected with the front wall of the Palace, knocking thousand-year-old masonry aside with a tremendous roar and clatter.  The Argonian vanished in the cloud of dust.  Dagon took his first step over the rubble into the ruin of the Imperial Palace.

 

Zudarra winced against the white cloud that rolled across the walkway, dust stinging her eyes and threatening to choke her before it slowly settled.  She watched with expectant horror, rooted to the spot, and reached out to grab Saraven by the shoulder.   _Don't go over there, it's hopeless!_ Gray shapes loomed in the fog at the top of the palace steps, and as the dust settled she saw a man emerge.  He was draped in a flowing, fur trimmed robe of purple and burgundy satin, a red jewel glittering brightly on his chest.

 

Saraven caught at her gauntlet to push it off his shoulder, then stopped dead as he caught sight of the Septim.  And he was, must be a Septim.  A profile very much like that one was on every coin in the realm.  He could not imagine what it meant.  The Emperor's sons had died at the hands of the same assassins who had killed their father.  Some secret heir, sheltered away from the capital?  

 

“Uriel Septim?” Zudarra gasped aloud.  Even as the words escaped her lips she knew it could not be him.  The Emperor had been old and gray – she had actually seen him once, in his private box at the arena.  This man looked very much like him from afar, but his long hair was brown and without a touch of gray.  Two guards in Akaviri plate armor stood on either side of him, holding their shields high to protect the man from debris.

 

“This way, Your Majesty!” one of them shouted and they grabbed him by the elbows to rush him down the steps just as Dagon's foot came down in front of the doorway, crushing stone beneath his feet in another cloud of dust.

 

The Argonian emerged from the dust rolling, inches ahead of Dagon's foot, and turned to stab at the giant's toe with a sword whose blade was black as jet, so dark that it seemed to suck in the light and devour it.  Dagon grunted in surprise, the noise felt as much as heard, and Saraven was stunned to realize that Got-No-Home had actually caused him pain.

 

“This is the thing for which I was changed,” Saraven said to Zudarra.  He kissed the back of her hand and gently removed it from his shoulder.  Zudarra stared stupidly down at him, heat flooding her face, but by the time she realized what he was doing he was already turning toward the lurching behemoth that was the Daedra Prince.  “Go.  Live!”

 

“No!” she shouted, stepping after him, but the Dunmer was already gone faster than she could ever hope to catch up.

 

The blood of dremora was almost burnt out in Saraven’s veins from his earlier exertion, but it would last just a little longer.  Enough to buy some time.  Enough to do what he had to do.  He asked for no more.  Saraven picked up speed as he ran toward Dagon, looking up to see the Daedra Prince's axe swoop down toward the Argonian again.  He accelerated as he watched Got-No-Home hurl himself forward between the giant feet, and then the axe came down in front of him with a world-shaking earthquake and he leaped as hard and as high as he could to grasp the hilt.  It was as wide as a tree trunk.  Saraven shinned up it as fast as he could, hearing another noise from above, a growl.  It would be flattering to think he was recognized.  He grinned as he reached the giant hand, hurled himself forward to grasp at the edge of a gauntlet.  The flesh of the Daedra Prince was burning hot to the touch.  He felt it through his armor, through his padding, as he let go with one arm to swing his sword.  It scraped over the crimson flesh without leaving the slightest mark.

 

And beyond Zudarra, the last heir of the Septim line disappeared into the Temple district with his Blades...

 


	20. Chapter 20

Everything within Zudarra screamed at her to run.  It was obvious that they could do nothing now.  Saraven's sacrifice would delay the inevitable by a few seconds at most.  She watched helplessly as a blur shot up onto the gigantic axe and then she could see Saraven climbing.  Dagon's hideous face glared down at the thing hanging from his wrist.  A mosquito could do more damage to a man than Saraven had done to the Prince of Destruction.  He turned his wrist over to get a better look at the clinging mortal, and brought up another clawed hand.  Zudarra bolted toward them without thinking.  Dagon was going to squash him!  

 

“Saraven!” she screamed as the black talons flicked the vampire away like a bug, shooting him against an upper floor of the half-ruined castle.  He smacked against the tower with a sharp _crack_ , plastered flat against the white stone for a horrible, gravity-defying second before his body tumbled into the debris several stories below.  Zudarra could not stop, even as Dagon's red foot came sailing from the heavens to crash into the ground beside her with a hot wind, knocking her to her knees.  She pushed herself up with her hands, leaving her sword forgotten on the ground as she raced to the pile of rubble at the base of White-Gold to find the broken body of the Dunmer.  She was unable to think of the miracle that Mehrunes Dagon had not squished her like an ant.  The world shook as Dagon smashed into the city wall behind her, stone crumbling in his hands as he tore at it to reach the Temple District.

 

She didn't care.  Damn the Emperor and damn Cyrodiil! _Saraven!_

 

* * *

 

Got-No-Home had not really slept in two days.  He was exhausted, dying for a drink, low on magicka and out of potions.  Hallucinations flickered in the corners of his vision if he held still for too long, dancing spriggans, waving branches of the Hist now forever lost to him.  Apotheosis had already failed him, the staff strapped across his back again as he plied the black blade against the feet of a god.  It was an artifact blessed or cursed by a daedra itself, and perhaps that was why it had the power to make him notice it even if it seemed to do no real harm.

 

He gaped, the Cathay-raht's scream ringing in his ears, as Mehrunes Dagon flicked the figure of a living creature from his gauntlet.  It was the Dunmer he had seen earlier, the pale one in the tarnished chainmail; he recognized the armor for the instant that it hung gleaming against White-Gold Tower before he plunged into the ruin below.  The armored Khajiit ran past him toward the rubble, breaking his reverie.

 

There was no time to delay.  Martin had gone to the Temple, and now Dagon was turning again toward that district, a horrible laugh rumbling in his giant throat like the sound of an avalanche as he reached out to break the wall between his four giant hands.

 

“He was a brave mer,” he said hoarsely, and turned and ran.

 

* * *

 

Saraven was aware of the shadow of the other hand falling over him, and turned to beat at it with his sword to no effect.  The daedric blade bent, then snapped, and then a giant finger was coming at him too fast and he was flying, soaring through the air.  He had barely time to realize this before the crushing impact of body with stone.  Chainmail could only protect him so far.  He felt things break in his chest and legs and arms, dizzied by the blow to his head, the ruin of the Imperial City spread out and smoking before him.

 

And then he fell.  He had no time to be afraid.  He hardly knew what was happening until he looked down and saw a rapidly approaching bedstead, the canopy half-torn, and then he smashed down with a shattering force he had never felt or experienced.  His legs snapped as they hit, first his calves, then his thighs, and then his back hit the mattress and he felt even more bones break, lungs pierced by the ruins of his ribcage.  His head snapped back and forward, and he felt cracks and twists in his spine that should not be there.

 

He lay there in the ruins of the mattress looking up at the red sky.  The pain was excruciating.   _How interesting._  Apparently vampires did not go into shock.  Without a living body there was no cushion of chemicals designed to ward off pain for one last hurrah, one last chance at escaping danger before the final collapse.  Unbreathing, he would not suffocate from his ruined chest.  He would remain animate until the last of the blood trickled out of his shriveling undead body.

 

Hopefully Zudarra would never know that.  Hopefully she had already fled the city.

 

Someone was coming, he realized after a moment, through the fog of agony.  Someone wearing heavy armor.

 

_Stubborn, stubborn girl._

 

There was no one else it could possibly be.  The thought did not even cross his mind.

 

* * *

 

Zudarra crawled over the slabs of rubble, eyes blurring when she saw the twisted form of the mer on the bed – it must have fallen from a bedroom in an upper level when Dagon smashed into the tower.  The wooden legs had collapsed when Saraven hit.  His eyes were open, but without any movement from his chest Zudarra could not tell immediately if he was alive or not. _Why, you idiot?  Why do you always have to be so selfless!_  She kneeled beside Saraven, smelling the bitter blood that leaked from his nose and a score of other places.  Her hands flew up to brush carefully against his shoulder, magicka pouring from her palms and showering his body with a gentle blue light.  The ample well that _should_ have been at her disposal was drained in a second, and Zudarra realized another mortal weakness she had forgotten.  She had never been much of a healer.  The magicka she now commanded would not have been enough to heal such serious injuries.  Saraven felt the power soak into his body, little clicks and clacks as his ribs tried to rebuild themselves, but it was over too fast.  

 

Behind them the grating scrape of claw against stone continued as blocks crumbled in Dagon's monstrous hands.  The ground trembled as huge chunks of wall fell and shattered in a cloud of dust.  Dagon laughed, deep and dark as he stepped over the ruined wall.

 

“Saraven, are you alive?” she blurted, fingers fumbling with the straps of her bracer as her eyes darted fearfully from his face to his hands for any sign of movement.  The horror that froze her heart was nothing Zudarra had ever experienced, a deep wrenching pain that hurt in places Zudarra did not know a person could be wounded.  

 

He moved his eyes to look at her, and the sound as he tried to fill his punctured lungs to speak was horrid, a loud rattle.  The ugly noise cut Zudarra deeper and filled her with joy all at once.  He could not form words.  He could, he realized, move his left hand now, only just.  He squeezed his fist shut as he let go the last of his own magicka, adding his healing to hers.  There were more squelching and clicking sounds, and the pain retreated a little more, but he still could not move anything below his waist.  He felt utterly spent, flesh shriveling around his bones; all that he had drunk seemed gone, his body drying up.  The face that he turned toward Zudarra was bloody and hollow, but there was a light of amusement in the red-on-red eyes.

 

“Told you to run,” he said dryly.

 

Zudarra's chest deflated with sudden exhalation when Saraven spoke.  She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath.  She thoughtlessly shucked away her bracer and it clattered a few feet away, prevented from rolling by the broken shards of brick jutting up from the rubble.  

 

“Run where?” she asked in a half-sob, half laugh at the absurdity of it.   _The world is ending.  Where should I run to without you?_  Even if Nirn burned to ashes and the daedra marched freely on the blackened world, they would find some way to survive.  There was no question.   _He has to survive._

 

* * *

 

 Got-No-Home continued to attack the feet of the Daedra Prince, teeth bared as he struck again and again with the black sword, running between the giant crimson feet.  He was ignored.  Dagon now knew where to find his prey.  The Argonian was forced to sprint aside again as the Daedra Prince swung his axe against the wall of the Temple of the One.  He stepped over the crumbled masonry, pillars subsiding around him as though made of earth, raising clouds of dust, raining chips of stone.  The Argonian collapsed to one knee, gasping for breath.  It was not enough time.  Surely it was not enough time -

 

Shafts of white light shot upward from inside, brilliant, blinding, shining in every direction.  A sound pierced the tumult, a high keening vibration that was still somehow euphonious, a glorious bell-tone.  And then the last of the stone roof exploded upward and outward as a dragon made of coherent fire unfurled wings that seemed to fill the sky.  Chunks of stone rained down as far away as the harbor, creating tremendous waves, rocking the ships in their moorings, as what could only be the avatar of Akatosh roared a triumphant challenge.  The dread of Dagon evaporated as every living soul yet surviving felt themselves filled with courage, with joy, with triumph, held aloft on the golden wings of the Divine.  Men and women would tell their children and their grandchildren of this day, for today Akatosh had risen to save, fulfilling the promise made so many generations before to St. Alessia and all of her bloodline.

 

* * *

 

The world was bathed in a blinding light that burst from behind her with a shower of stones and Zudarra leaned forward to protect the vampire from being pelted.  She was certain that the end of the ordeal had come and that it was happening behind her, but Zudarra did not turn to look as she thrust her naked wrist under Saraven's nose, gingerly lifting the back of his head with her other hand.  Her artery throbbed warm and strong beneath the soft, creamy fur of her underarm.

 

“Drink.  Hurry!” she commanded.  

 

* * *

 

Light – gods, the light was blinding, he thought for a moment it would burn him to ashes.  His skin stung as if in the bright sun, though the walls overshadowed them.  He shut his eyes involuntarily.  It seemed to shine even through his eyelids.  Then blessed darkness fell as Zudarra's cuirass intervened between him and the light.  He opened his eyes, nostrils flaring at the scent of living blood.  Her hand was under his head – warm, she was so warm now, it was glorious and it was perfect and he was becoming deranged with thirst, that was what it was.

 

Even now he could choose otherwise.  Even now he could take the gift of Sheogorath, and perish, and leave her strong in her last hours to survive as best she could in the ruin of all that had once been.

 

Or he could give in to his thirst, trust that he still had enough control to stop in time, and be there to defend her in her new mortal weakness for as long as possible.

 

Perhaps he was not as strong as all that.  He raised a hand to press her wrist to his mouth, reaching out gently to her mind – let there be no pain – without trying to blot everything out, without trying to impose an altered consciousness.  He would not press if she pushed him away; but he did not want her to suffer.  Now he had the capacity he had lacked when they were together in a cell, and he showed her all that he had ever felt for her: exasperation and anger and pride and affection, wrapping her in love like a warm blanket as the first drops of blood trickled over his tongue.

 

Then blood flooded his throat, flooded his senses, and his eyes fluttered as pain drained away to be replaced by pleasure.  He could feel her pulse against his teeth, her life animating his body as the tissues began to fill again with blood.  The sound of his bones setting seemed soft and distant in his ears.  It was not important.  His world was made of Zudarra.

 

Behind them, giants fought.  Akatosh and Dagon strove in the ruins of the Temple of the One, the daedra with his axe buried in the dragon's chest, the flaming beast with his teeth fixed in the throat of the Prince of Destruction.  They swayed to and fro, Dagon roaring in fury, Akatosh giving forth the hiss and crackle of a fire as big as the Temple itself.  At last the Daedra Prince sagged, his giant avatar no longer able to sustain life as his black blood flooded down over the broken stones.  The body burst into crimson dust and vanished.  Akatosh reared back, screaming his triumph to the sky as he spread his flaming wings.  

 

But for Zudarra the roar of the raging gods behind her was a lifetime away, all sound and light muffled by the flood of emotions that poured into her being.  With it came comprehension and Zudarra's mind opened to everything Saraven would show her.  At first it was overwhelming – love was so much stronger than the rage and the self-serving pride that had dominated her life as she struggled to find meaning.  She saw in his affection an echo of her own confusing emotions, things she could not understand on her own, but which all seemed to make sense as her strength seeped away with her blood.  

 

Zudarra had been in Saraven's place long enough to know that he could sense her thoughts, that he could feel the affection and the respect that she held for him, that he could feel the profound grief she had experienced when he asked her to end his life in the cell.  He could see her terror, her loneliness, her deep yearning for his companionship after a lifetime alone.  Saraven was good in a way she could never be, strong in a way she would never be again, but in that moment Zudarra felt no jealousy.  Only happiness that he was alive.

 

All over the city gates to Oblivion imploded, fell in on themselves, their crimson membranes popping like soap bubbles.  All over the city the daedra suddenly milled in confusion, stunned by the sudden loss of their power as the connection to the Daedra Prince snapped like a length of rotten thread.  The survivors fell on them with renewed fury, screaming the name of their savior.

 

There was a great cracking and shaking as the dragon's feet began to turn to stone.  The transformation crept upward rapidly, quenching the flames, until at last there was stillness, there was silence, and there was a statue of a dragon looming above the ruined walls of what had once been a temple.

 

If Zudarra could see through the shining tears in her eyes she may have watched Saraven’s frame fill out as color returned to his face, but Zudarra could only sense his strength return as hers fled.  In the distance she could hear the chant of “Martin!  Martin!” and cries of joy as the last of the invaders were sent to the wastes after their Prince, but it all seemed so far away and inconsequential.  Her heart was beginning to slow.  Saraven was aware of it even as he bathed in everything that she felt, in fear and isolation deeper than he had imagined, in desperation, in want.  He detached himself gently as he sent back warmth and reassurance.  She had survived, survived it all, come out of it stronger.  

 

When Saraven's mouth lifted from her wrist the Cathay-raht threw off her helm and collapsed on top of him, scooping the Dunmer up in a tight hug.  Delirious from blood loss or joy, she could not tell, but she clutched at him with her remaining strength, pressing her wet muzzle into the crook of his neck.  

Saraven felt stronger now, arms reaching up around her to hold the hard heavy cuirass against himself as he felt a damp nose against his throat.   _Warm._ He shook loose a gauntlet and reached up to stroke her hair carefully.

 

“There's my Zudarra,” he said quietly.  “Sh, sh.  We're all right.  We're all right now.”

 

They were not empty words, he realized after a moment.  He blinked as he saw the sky clearing overhead, blue shining through the black clouds as they started to fade away.  He sat up slowly, cradling her with one arm, and groped backward for the water skin with his other hand.  It was still there, but crushed by the first impact of his back with stone, half-empty.  

 

_Half-full._

 

“Ha,” he said aloud, and worked it loose to drag it around in front of him.  “Here.  Drink.”  He held it to her muzzle and tilted it to pour water into her mouth.  Zudarra closed her eyes in silent pleasure as the tepid water spilled across her tongue, the arm encircling her body and the replenishing liquid both a greater joy than blood had ever been.  She reached up with a weak hand to take the water skin from him as she gulped it dry.  

 

People were moving around out beyond this pile of rubble.  A familiar Argonian was walking toward them, surrounded by guards, a priest in white robes at his elbow.  His nostrils flared as he moved closer, and he turned unerringly to move toward them, gray robes dusty and torn around his ankles.  His staff was on his back, black sword at his side.

 

“So you have survived after all,” he said.  His accent was thick enough to suggest he had not been born in the province; but then, Argonians generally were not.

 

“She needs healing,” Saraven said.  Got-No-Home gestured the priest forward.  He hurried up to kneel beside them, reaching out hands that were already glowing.

 

Zudarra’s limbs felt impossibly light, her mind foggy from blood loss rather than enthrallment.  The people that surrounded them seemed figments in a dream as healing magicka washed over her, mending the bruises of battle.

 

“You're Got-No-Home,” Zudarra said distantly.  Then her face grew hot and she extracted herself from the Dunmer's arm, turning her gaze to the statue that towered over the ruined wall.  It was clearly Akatosh, his head thrown back and wings outstretched as if frozen in a roar of triumph.

 

“And you are Zudarra the Bloody,” said Got-No-Home, turning to look back toward the Temple District through the great rift in the wall.  “I have often heard of your deeds as I traveled.”  

 

“What happened?  Where is the Emperor?”

 

The crests on his head furled gently, flat along his skull as he bowed his head toward the distant statue.  “The Amulet of Kings is broken, and Martin Septim has gone to be with his fathers.  A human body can only sustain the power of Akatosh for a very brief while.”

 

Zudarra felt unable to fully comprehend the gravity of the Argonian's words.  Akatosh himself had come forth to banish Mehrunes Dagon.  It had been his holy light that spilled across the world in those last moments, she realized, and now a stone husk that had once been his living avatar remained behind as proof of the Emperor's sacrifice.   _You gaze upon a Divine_.  Zudarra had never been religious, but it was deeply humbling in a way that she could best appreciate in this foggy, prideless state.

 

“Akatosh,” whispered the priest as he rose to his feet.  The men around them, four Legionnaires and one Blade with dark chocolate-brown skin, echoed the whisper of that name.

 

Saraven rose to his feet, an arm unobtrusively under Zudarra's to raise her with him.  The adamantium must be heavy as the weight of guilt after blood loss.  She did not push him away.

 

“They saved us after all,” Saraven said quietly.

 

“Yes,” said Got-No-Home, raising his crests again slowly, with an effort.  “Yes, they did.  I must go and find the Chancellor, see that all things go on in their proper places.  Vordarius?”

 

“Yes, Sir,” said one of the Legionnaires, detaching himself from the group and moving forward to stand on Zudarra's other side.  “If you would come with me, Ma'am.”

 

Zudarra nodded to the Legionnaire and bent to pick up her helm and bracer as she followed him away from the ruin.  She was very tired and longed to shed her heavy armor.  It was a labor to simply hold herself up, her legs threatening to give out with every step.

 

Got-No-Home was already moving away, speaking to the others wearily.  Saraven lifted a hand in farewell as he turned to follow.

 

The Legionnaire called Vordarius led them to the wall between Green Emperor Way and the Arboretum, to a door in a corner tower.  It was a short climb up a winding stair, the torches placidly lit against the advancing night as though nothing had happened.  Saraven went behind Zudarra in case she should falter on the stairs, ready to unobtrusively support her in a way that the other man would not see.

 

It opened onto a deceptively large barracks room lined with beds, each one with a chest at the end.  There was a cupboard and a table in front of it, a plate on the table with a potato and half a pork chop sitting there cold, one of the four chairs pushed back.  There was no one inside.  Some of the beds were disarranged.  The Imperial's face crumpled for a second as he stood there in the empty room, but he breathed deeply and quickly regained control.

 

“There's a wash bucket behind the divider,” he nodded to a rough wooden screen in the corner.  “Food and water in the cupboard, hammers and tongs in the barrel.  Help yourselves to what you need.  The unit that bunks here was – they won't be here to interrupt.”  He turned his face away again for a moment, shoulders heaving.  Saraven rested a hand briefly on his shoulder.

 

“Thank you,” he said quietly.  “We'll be fine.”

 

The man nodded quickly and retreated back down the stairs.

 

“All right, off with the armor and into bed,” Saraven said, turning to Zudarra.  “I'll bring you food.”  He reached for her helmet.

 

Zudarra was not keen to have Saraven or anyone else doting on her, but she was too exhausted to argue, too shocked that they were both alive to believe that any of this was real, so she handed her helm to the Dunmer and sank onto a bed.  Her hands slowly worked at unstrapping her armor, moving on their own with little conscious input from the Khajiit.  She laid the pieces against the wall, so light and free with the burden off her shoulders and the soft mattress sinking under her weight.  

 

He was surprised and relieved that she didn't actually argue with him for once, and then mildly alarmed.  Had he taken more than he'd thought?  He moved to collect food – it was not remotely attractive to him now, little lumps of colored sod, strange unappealing smells – and stacked it on a plate, then sniffed at a couple of clay jugs until he found the one that smelled like water.  Water had a scent.  He'd never noticed that.

 

As she watched Saraven collecting food from the cupboard the memory of the connection they had shared came flooding back.  Her soul had been laid bare not only to him, but to herself as well.   _I have a friend.  There is a person in this world whom I love more than myself._  She was too weak to feel the embarrassment she might have otherwise.  Mostly she was filled with a comfortable warmth.  

 

“Thank you, Saraven,” she said quietly.  She did not mean for the food or the help getting upstairs.

 

He paused as she spoke, hand on a cupboard door.  Then he shut it, hooked a clay cup, and came to set cup and jug on a chair beside the bed, handing her the plate.  He did not let go until he was sure she could hold it.  Then he sat on the edge of the bed beside her, reaching out to smooth her hair down against the short headboard.

 

His hand was unnaturally cool, but Zudarra did not recoil from it or feel sadness as she had days before.  This was Saraven now.  He would never have a living body, but the cold touch was no less of a comfort.  It was awkward to be touched, it was something she was not accustom to, but she was glad to have him near.

 

“You saved me,” he said softly.  “More than one time and in more than one way.  Don't thank me.  You all right?”

 

“Yes, I'm fine,” she said, laying the plate across her lap and tearing into a piece of salted pork.  Zudarra wondered if the joy of eating would ever diminish – probably it would, she didn't remember every little thing being so delicious in her earlier life – but for now she would savor the novelty.  She slowed in her chewing as his words sank in. _In more than one way._

 

“Well,” she sputtered.  “I hope it's finally got through to you that I'm not just going to leave you to die, even if that's what you tell me to do.  You can't ask that of a person.”

 

Saraven relaxed slightly as he saw her eating.  Having an appetite was a good sign.

 

“I'll try not to do it again,” he said.  “Someone needs to keep an eye on you, and I'm not sure anyone else would be able to keep up.”

 

It wouldn't last forever.  Probably.  But a Cathay-raht's remaining life expectancy would give them plenty of time to think and talk it over, if he could prevent anything killing her in the meantime.  And if, there at the end, she decided she wanted to stay, forever was only three days away.  

 

Saraven Gol felt something he had not felt in decades, in all the long years of his vengeance and labor.  He felt peace.  The anger and exhaustion had fallen away, and he felt ready to face whatever lay ahead.

 

No, the closing of the gates would not be the end.

 

 

...

_The End_


End file.
